Adult graphic novel sales rebounded in 2025, according to Bookscan figures reported by Jim Milliot in Publishers’s Weekly. Following two years of declining sales, the category recorded a 9.2% increase, with 25.9 million units sold.
The source of the rebound isn’t immediately clear, although manga had a strong year. Hopefully ICv2 which also gets Bookscan numbers, will provide some clarity.
Of the best selling books for the year, Jeff Kinney and Dav Pilkey charted. Wimpy Kid Party Pooper came in at #5 with 817,430 copies sold, while two Dog Man books came in at #6 and #8 with 767,342 and 681,041 copies sold. These helped lead the children’s fiction category to a 1.6%. rise in unit sales. YA fiction titles were down 1.8%.
Overall book sales inched upwards in 2025:
For the second consecutive year, unit sales of print books were up at outlets that report to Circana BookScan, hitting 762.4 million in 2025. That marks a 0.3% increase over 2024, which in turn saw sales grow 0.5% over 2023. Since sales peaked in 2021 at 839.7 million copies, they have settled at levels higher than before the pandemic, though not as high as many publishers had hoped.
Postpandemic, adult fiction—helped by the emergence of BookTok—has been the strongest segment, and adult fiction sales did increase again in 2025, but they were up just 1%, compared to a nearly 5% increase in 2024 over 2023. Sales in the romance category rose 3.9%, to almost 44 million units, while fantasy sales fell 8.7%, to 24.1 million. BookScan doesn’t have a romantasy category, but the big driver in romance was the romantasy favorite Onyx Storm (Wing and Claw Collection) by Rebecca Yarros, which sold nearly 1.7 million copies during the year. The standard edition of Onyx Storm sold another 578,000 copies.Elsewhere in adult fiction, after two years of declines, sales of graphic novels bounced back, rising 9.2% in 2025, to 25.9 million units. Science fiction posted the largest increase among adult fiction categories, with sales up 22.1%, to just over six million units. Suspense and thriller sales fell 2.2%, to 25.5 million units.
The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins was the #1 bok of the year with more than 2.8 million copies sold.
| Rank | Title | Author | Imprint | Units |
| 1. | The Let Them Theory | Mel Robbins | Hay House | 2,812,799 |
| 2. | Sunrise on the Reaping | Suzanne Collins | Scholastic | 2,000,856 |
| 3. | Onyx Storm (Wing and Claw ed.) | Rebecca Yarros | Red Tower | 1,699,963 |
| 4. | The Housemaid | Freida Mcfadden | Grand Central | 822,261 |
| 5. | Partypooper (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #20) | Jeff Kinney | Amulet | 817,430 |
| 6. | Dog Man: Big Jim Believes (Dog Man #14) | Dav Pilkey | Graphix | 767,342 |
| 7. | Atomic Habits | James Clear | Avery | 742,090 |
| 8. | Dog Man: Big Jim Begins (Dog Man #13) | Dav Pilkey | Graphix | 681,041 |
| 9. | The Secret of Secrets | Dan Brown | Doubleday | 653,505 |
| 10. | Fourth Wing | Rebecca Yarros | Red Tower | 623,226 |
| 11. | Lights Out | Navessa Allen | Slowburn | 595,155 |
| 12. | Onyx Storm (standard ed.) | Rebecca Yarros | Red Tower | 573,192 |
| 13. | Oh, the Places You’ll Go! | Dr. Seuss | Random House Books for Young Readers | 564,047 |
| 14. | The Very Hungry Caterpillar | Eric Carle | Philomel | 558,815 |
| 15. | The Crash | Freida Mcfadden | Poisoned Pen | 557,918 |
| 16. | The Tenant | Freida Mcfadden | Poisoned Pen | 543,722 |
| 17. | Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? | Bill Martin | Henry Holt | 508,887 |
| 18. | The Nightingale | Kristin Hannah | St. Martin’s Griffin | 499,485 |
| 19. | I Love You to the Moon and Back | Amelia Hepworth | Tiger Tales | 478,176 |
| 20. | A Court of Thorns and Roses | Sarah J. Maas | Bloomsbury | 475,642 |
Source: Publishers Weekly and Circana Bookscan
