Book sales set for new record
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The UK’s love affair with reading, rekindled during pandemic lockdowns, shows little sign of abating with almost £1 billion being spent on paperbacks and hardbacks already this year. Sales are up slightly on the record-breaking 2021 with hopes that the upward trend will continue.
According to industry tracker Nielsen, Britons had spent £945 million on 113 million books by August 13.
Non-fiction sales have fallen behind last year as Britons turn to paperback fiction for their summer holidays. Current bestsellers including the romance It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover and Richard Osman's second book, The Man Who Died Twice.
While an estimated two-thirds of people in the UK read in their spare time, industry insiders worried that the introduction of e-readers such as Kindles a decade ago would kill off the print industry. But book sales rose in the UK during the pandemic to their highest levels since 2012.
The Publishers Association said the UK industry's total income hit a record high of £6.7 billion.
The social media platform TikTok is also helping younger readers discover books and has been identified as a key driver of print sales.