The book industry showed some signs of life over the recently concluded Thanksgiving week, with Nielsen BookScan reporting that total units for the week ended Nov. 30, 2008, rose 6.0% over the week ended Nov. 25, 2007. Units sold hit just above 16.2 million at the outlets that report to BookScan, with the juvenile fiction segment enjoying the strongest performance—a gain of 33.7%. The figures coincide with reports from a dozen independent booksellers who said that, for the most part, sales were better than expected over the Thanksgiving weekend, although most still finished November down from 2007. The biggest hit at Thanksgiving were the Stephenie Meyer titles, with many stores reporting that they were out of stock on the four books (which are available in a total of nine formats). Sales have received a boost from the release of the film Twilight, which is based on Meyer's first book. Hachette has gone back to press for 7.5 million copies to meet demand.
Taking a look at sales by format, mass market paperbacks had a strong week, with sales up 12.2%. Hardcover sales rose 6.6% in the week, and trade paperback sales were ahead 6%. Calendar sales were down 9.4%, and spoken-word audio was off 13.6%.
| Sales in units | 11/25/2007 | 11/30/2008* | % Change |
| *all sales exclude NonTraditional store Figures Source: Nielsen BookScan | |||
| Total | 15,319,000 | 16,246,000 | 6.0% |
| Subject Group | |||
| Adult Nonfiction | 5,869,000 | 5,353,000 | -8.8 |
| Adult Fiction | 3,734,000 | 3,998,000 | 7.1 |
| Juvenile Nonfiction | 782,000 | 903,000 | 15.5 |
| Juvenile Fiction | 3,324,000 | 4,445,000 | 33.7 |
| Other | 1,610,000 | 1,547,000 | -3.9 |
