Print Book Sales Down

Unless business improves in the upcoming holiday season, the publishing industry seems headed for a slight decline in print book sales in 2025 compared to last year. According data from Circana BookScan, print sales for the nine-month period ended Oct. 4, 2025 slipped 0.9% from the comparable period in 2024. The dip in nine-month sales is in line with how sales have performed for much of the year, with sales down around 1%.

Sales in the once high-flying adult fiction segment slipped 1.3% in the nine-month span. Sales in the segment’s largest genre, romance, rose 7% in the period, but sales in fantasy—the other half of the romantasy equation—fell 11.9%. Sales of science fiction books were up 12.3%. Some of the category’s other largest genres saw declines with suspense/thriller sales down 6.9%, while sales of graphic novels rose 0.7%. Rebecca Yarros has had another good year with the Onyx Storm collectors’ edition selling more than 1.6 million copies, while the standard edition sold nearly 538,000 copies—slightly more than the sales for her Fourth Wing novel.

Sales of adult nonfiction improved slightly in the third quarter, but through nine months were still down 2%. Sales of self-help books continued to do well, up 16.1% driven by The Let Them Theory, which has sold nearly 2.3 million copies in 2025, making it the #1 bestseller so far this year. Sales in the crafts/hobbies/antiques/games subcategory were up 7.7%, while the travel, health/fitness/medicine, and general nonfiction areas all had double-digit declines through the first nine months of the year.

The children's fiction segment had an uptick in sales in the third quarter and finished the first nine months of the year, up 0.8% from a year ago. The big category driver was the holidays/festivals/religion area, where sales rose 7.3%. The top-selling title in the category was Dav Pilkey’s Big Jim Begins, which sold more than 576,000 copies.

Children's nonfiction sales were up 2.7% led by big gains in games/activities/hobbies, holidays/festivals/religion, and concepts categories.

Young adult fiction sales fell 1.6% through October 4, despite a strong showing from Sunrise on the Reaping, which has sold over 1.8 million copies since its release in March. Sales of YA nonfiction were flat.

Nine Months Unit Sales of Print Books by Category, 2024-2025 (in thousands)