The smooth fall sales season continued last week, with print unit sales falling 14.9% from the week ended November 6, 2021. Sales were down in all categories reported by NPD BookScan, including sales of adult fiction, which was the best performing segment. This year. Additionally, the weekly decline was not the result of a massive blockbuster released a year ago, but resulted in weakness across all categories.
Adult fiction sales fell 0.8% last week despite Colleen Hoover It starts with us selling nearly 125,000 copies within the week. Last year’s bestseller in the category was The stranger in the lifeboat by Mitch Albom, which sold over 52,000 copies. The best-selling new release last week was Go rogue by Janet Evanovich, which sold over 36,000 copies, placing it in fourth place on the category list.
The juvenile category saw the steepest declines, with non-fiction sales down 20.4% and fiction down 19.3%. In fiction, Jeff Kinney’s latest book, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Diper Overlöde, remained at No. 1, selling just under 101,000 copies. Two new titles followed: The Other Villains?! by Aaron Blabey, which sold nearly 35,000 copies, and The sour grape by Jory John, which sold over 20,000 copies. Last year, Kinney’s Big shot, #16 in the Wimpy Kid series, was #1, selling over 125,000 copies.
Sales of non-fiction children’s books fell despite Check out the animal learning activity block selling nearly 17,000 copies in its first week on sale, which was well above the category’s #1 seller’s 8,800 copies last year, How to draw 101 animals by Dan Green, sold.
Two new memoirs topped the adult non-fiction category, but sales still fell 16.2% from 2021. Matthew Perry’s Friends, lovers and the great terrible thing, was No. 1, selling nearly 96,000 copies and Bono’s Abandonment sold nearly 45,000 copies.