The spring sales trend of weekly declines of about 6% continued last week with unit sales of print books dropping 6.4% compared to the week ended May 22, 2021. The sales decline through May 21, 2022, also came in at 6.4%, compared to last year at outlets that report to NPD BookScan.
Adult nonfiction continued to struggle, with sales falling 11% despite a host of new titles hitting high up on the category list. The Office BFFs by Jenna Fischer was #1 in the category, selling more than 26,000 copies in its first week on sale. Last year at this time John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed was #1, selling over 57,000 copies. Other new nonfiction books that had solid debuts were Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Mulitverse, which sold nearly 24,000 copies, and Endure by Cameron Hanes, which sold almost 18,000 copies, putting the titles in second and fourth place on the category chart, respectively.
The adult fiction category was the only segment to post a sales increase over last year. Colleen Hoover’s It Ends with Us was #1, selling over 34,000 copies, and Hoover had three other titles on the category top 10 list. The highest-ranking new release was Jack Carr’s In the Blood, which sold over 22,000 copies.
Juvenile fiction sales dropped 8% from 2021. Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss was #1 on the category list both last week and a year ago, selling about 60,000 copies in each week. Bloom of the Flower Dragon by Tracey West sold over 16,000 copies in its first week on sale, making it the top-selling new release in the category.
