Solid gains in the religious presses and children’s/YA fiction categories helped to lift total November sales 1.9% at the 1,324 publishers that report their results to AAP’s StatShot program.
Sales of religious books rose 7.5% in November led by a 17% jump in sales of hardcover books. Sales through November were up 1.7% in the category due entirely to higher hardcover sales.
Sales in the children’s/YA fiction segment rose 7.4% in November, while sales fell 7.7% in nonfiction. Similar to the religious category, hardcover sales drove the increase in the fiction category, with sales up 18.1%. With the exception of special bindings, sales of all formats fell in the nonfiction category.
On the adult side, fiction sales inched up 1.2% and nonfiction rose 2.3%. Digital audio had a big month, with sales up 18% in fiction and 19.6% in nonfiction. E-book sales had small gains in the month in both categories. Hardcover sales rose 1.5% in fiction and 3.1% in nonfiction.
With one month to go in 2025, sales of adult books were down 2.5% compared to 2024 due largely to a 8.2% drop in trade paperback sales. In children’s/YA, 11-month sales were off 0.9% with sales of hardcovers down 2.5% and paperbacks slipping 0.2%.
For all publishers that report to StatShot, sales through November were up 0.5%. The total is somewhat problematic since the AAP has had difficulty getting publishers of higher education course materials and PreK-12 instructional materials to supply results in sufficient quantities to break out sales in the different segments. As such, both categories' results are combined in the “all other” category, where sales through November were up 6.7%.
