I don't usually care about the industry numbers that come out each year ranking book sales, because I always know my category - children's nonfiction - will be mentioned somewhere in the last paragraph, or not at all. But, yesterday
PW announced that the sale of juvenile NF increased 15.6% from 2013 (at least among the outlets that report to BookScan). 48,882,000 in 2014, up from 42,283,000 in 2013. Hooray for us! It doesn't even dampen my enthusiasm that the top 4 books in the category were handbooks for the Minecraft game.
These numbers should perk up the ears of editors and agents, and make them more interested in those nonfiction stories that come across their desks. So, get your manuscripts polished. Let's make 2015 an even better year for children's nonfiction.
It was nice to see that juvenile nonfiction showed the biggest growth of any category, although juvenile fiction was not far behind. Very heartening!
ReplyDeleteYes, Roberta. And with so many new avenues for authors, it really is a Happy New Year!
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