IMPORTANT NEWS ALERT.

Whenever you see book sales stats for 2023 that show a decline versus 2022, don’t forget that book publishing has recently experienced record-breaking sales during the pandemic. Those highs were never going to be sustained. If you look at book sales in 2023 versus pre-pandemic years, they are still up. Very much up.

Fiction sales in particular are still beating 2022. It’s all about where you look and what you value.

The sky is not falling.

Of course, there are many reasons to be critical of the Big Five publishers and to make an argument that they’re in trouble or in decline. But making that argument on the basis of 2023 vs 2022 sales is not the way.