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January 8, 2021, 12:26pm
Here’s some surprising end-of-2020 good news: books are doing . . . well? According to NPD BookScan, unit sales of print books in the United States rose 8.2% in 2020. Units hit 750.9 million this year 57.2 million up from last year. This is fairly surprising, given the pandemic was expected to take a huge toll on sales; but online sales and sales through non-bookstore outlets offset the losses suffered by physical retailers.
And there’s even happier news from across the pond: the Booksellers Association announced that despite the pandemic, the number of independent bookstores in the UK and Ireland has grown for the fourth year in a row, rising from 890 shops in 2019 to 967 shops at the end of 2020. Said Meryl Halls, managing director of the Booksellers Association, “Thankfully, booksellers were able to adapt quickly to the new realities of 2020, pivoting their services online and finding new ways to reach their customers and continue operating.”