Thanks to remote schooling, physical book sales rose last year. According to NPD BookScan, all major categories posted increases, with unit sales of print books rising 8.2% in 2020. At the beginning of this month, units hit 750.9 million—up from 693.7 million the previous year. The industry received an “immediate boost” in the spring when parents were finding ways to cope and supplement remote learning for their kids leading to a “strong demand” in juvenile nonfiction books. The category ended the year with a 23.1% increased in print unit sales—and the strongest subcategories in the year were education, reference, and language, which had a 55.5% increase. Games, activities, and hobbies rose 31.3%. The most popular titles included Big Preschool Work, which sold 790K copies, and My First Learn-to-Write Workbook, which sold more than 703K copies. (Publishers Weekly)
