Among the many sectors that COVID-19 has weakened, one surprising sector stands out as stronger than before: the book business.
While isolated at home, people turned to books for education, distraction and community. As virtual meetings took the place of in-person gatherings, online book clubs saw memberships surge.
There was marked impact on the book business, but not in the way that many pundits had feared. With many in-person bookshops shuttered, book sellers like Amazon, Target and the new non-profit player Bookshop saw online sales boom, more than compensating for the drop in in-person purchases. By the end of 2020, five of the biggest trade publishers reported annual increases in revenue and profit. Print book and e-book sales hit 942 million, a 8.2 percent increase from 2019, according to Publishers Weekly.
The surge in sales was most pronounced in the juvenile nonfiction category, as many parents turned to books to help their children with remote learning. That category finished 2020 with a 23.1% increase in print unit sales, according to NPD BooksScan.
Children were not the only ones learning through books, as sales of non-fiction work that lent greater understanding of current events also surged. Amid the election chaos, political books rose in popularity, especially those written by and about politicians. Meanwhile, among Barnes and Noble’s best selling books was Michael Lewis’s take on how and why the pandemic spread so quickly, as described in his non-fiction “The Premonition”. Books that related to the Black Lives Matter movement and race also sold in large numbers. “How To Be an Antiracist” by Ibram X. Kendi and “So You Want to Talk About Race,” by Ijeoma Oluo were some of the most popular in this category. General fiction also sold, with a rise of 6% in sales from last year, again according to NPD BookScan. The hottest subcategory in that category was graphic novels and the least popular was action/adventure, which NPD says showed a 14.9% drop year on year. Perhaps in a pandemic, we had enough that was new to process without embarking on a trip through yet another, never before conceived world.
All of which is to say for us at AuthorPods, this past year has only further demonstrated the importance of what we do: namely, to support and seed conversation, engagement, and learning around shared interests through a diverse selection of authors and their books. This pandemic no doubt closed many doors and wrought deep devastation, it is clear, but the last year also has opened a window through which we can see the many opportunities for learning and connection to those of us who seek to learn and connect virtually and in-person with a wider, engaged world.
