The Guardian reports
There were 669m physical books sold in the UK last year, according to new figures from the Publishers Association
The UK publishing industry had a “record-breaking year” in 2022, with a total income of £6.9bn.
A Year in Publishing, a look at the state of the book market by trade body the Publishers Association , found that sales were up 4% from 2021In 2022, 669m physical books were sold in the UK, the highest overall level ever recorded.
The export market saw an increase of 8% in 2022, with £4.1bn in total sales. The UK’s biggest export was Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, which was adapted for a hit Netflix show. A fifth book in the series is due to the be released later this year, and Oseman this month announced that there will be a sixth and final instalment.
However, domestic sales were down slightly, by 1% to £2.7bn, with increases in print sales driven by the export market.
In consumer books, print sales were up 2%, to £1.8bn, while digital sales were also up 2% to £423m and audio downloads saw an 8% increase to £164m. Fiction was up by 9% to £797m of sales, and children’s books were up by 1%. Non-fiction saw a decrease of 2%, but still accounted for £1bn.
Rebecca Smart, chair of the Association’s consumer publishers council and co-CEO of DK Books, said that while it was “disappointing to see a modest decrease in overall sales at home, it is great to see fiction and audio doing particularly well as people continue to seek entertainment and discovery through books”.
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