Monthly retail sales of U.S. bookstores 2018-2021

Retail sales data for bookstores in the United States showed that the sales of U.S. book retailers amounted to 1.1 billion U.S. dollars in August 2021, marking an increase from the 770 million recorded in August of the previous year. Although monthly sales tend to be overall lower than in previous years, and aside from in August 2021 have failed to surpass one billion U.S. dollars since the end of 2019, the U.S. book market remains stable.

Book formats in the United States

Print books still generate the majority of book sales revenue in the United States, with hardback books alone pulling in 3.4 billion U.S. dollars of the 8.6 billion total in 2020. Meanwhile, e-book sales growth is sluggish. The number of e-books sold each year is notoriously difficult to track and results depend on the data provided by publishers, and official figures show that annual e-book revenue has yet to reach 1.5 billion U.S. dollars. When it comes to audiobooks, physical audiobook revenue has fallen consistently since 2017, whereas downloaded audio revenue is increasing.

Audiobook consumption

Audiobook sales revenue is climbing in tandem with the share of U.S. adults listening to audiobooks in general. One of the advantages of audiobooks is the ability to enjoy them whilst on the move, but data shows that more and more consumers have begun listening to them at home. Whilst the COVID-19 pandemic led to increased in-home media consumption, the home was already a popular location for audiobook listening prior to the outbreak, with a survey from 2019 revealing that the same share of respondents listened to audiobooks at home as those who did so in the car.

Given their unique appeal, audiobooks will continue to gather ground. Print, however, is still the preferred book format, and new print books outperform used books in terms of popularity which is good news for the book market.