Authors Daily

Year-End BookScan Data Confirms Print Resilience and Romance Dominance

Annual print book sales figures show strong unit volume supported by romance subgenres and special hardcover collector editions.

Priya SharmaPublished Updated 1 min read

Circana BookScan has released final year-end print book sales metrics for the US retail market, confirming total print unit sales of 768 million copies.

Print sales remained robust, exceeding pre-pandemic baseline figures by over 8%.

Highlights by Category

  • Romance & Tropes: Adult fiction sales were led by romance subgenres (romantic fantasy, sports romance, and workplace romance), which grew 19% year-over-year.
  • Hardcover Special Editions: Premium hardcover print runs with custom endpapers and sprayed edges expanded significantly.
  • Young Adult Fiction: YA fiction maintained steady volume, supported by active reader communities on social platforms.

Retail analysts attribute print resilience to readers valuing physical books as tangible items and personal collection displays.

Sources

  1. 01Circana BookScan Market Dataaccessed

Priya Sharma

Legal & IP correspondent

Priya covers copyright litigation, artificial intelligence regulation, and international author rights.

The day in five minutes

Deals, warnings and platform changes, in your inbox each weekday morning.

One email each weekday. Unsubscribe in a click. We never sell the list.

Related stories