Graphic novel sales fell 11.5% in 2024, Publishers Weekly reports, in a look at yearly sales based on numbers from Circana BokScan by Jim Milliot, with 24.4 million units sold. 

It was the second year of falling sales for the category – sales fell 22.4% in 2023 – but at a much slower pace. Graphic novels remained the fifth biggest sub-category in adult fiction for the year – however in 2023 they were third largest. 

PW’s chart doesn’t break things down by genre, so what other sub-categories rose or fell is left to future reports.  However romantasy was a big driver, with Sarah J Maas and Rebecca Yarrow the year’s biggest stars, leading fantasy sales to rise by 35.8%. In non-magical fantasy, Colleen Hoover also held her own, with more than 1.6 million copies sold, as romance rose nearly 9%. 

The Women by Kristen Hannah was the top book of the year, with The Housemaid and Atomic Habits breaking up the Maas-Yarrow-Hoover ascendancy. 

Overall, print book sales inched up by 1% – essentially flat – but it was the first increase in three years, following the pandemic surge of ‘21. Books sold 782.7 million copies in 2024, compared to 759.6 million in 2020, to the trajectory is still stronger than pre pandemic years.  

Dav Pilkey’s Dog Man: The Scarlet Shedder was the top selling children’s book with nearly 1.3 million copies sold – and it was the third biggest book overall. Despite strong performances from Pilkey and Wimpy Kid’s Jeff Kinney, total juvenile fiction sales – where most kids graphic novels are found – dropped 1.3%, again essentially flat. 

Sales picked up as the year ended, and clearly print books are still a popular and enjoyable pastime and collectible. Now if they can just survive the expected rise in costs if tariffs are put in place. 

The Beat is already at work on our 2024 BookScan analysis, so we’ll have more detailed sales information on graphic novels and manga as the year progresses.