The Prince Harry boom: the book market is growing enormously

Travel books and autobiographical works such as Prince Harry’s memoirs are the driving force behind the global book market this year. This is evident from the book market report published on Tuesday by GfK Entertainment and Nielsen Book Data.

Accordingly, in the first eight months of the year, the book market recorded an increase in sales in most of the sixteen markets surveyed, which was accompanied by significantly higher prices.

The book markets in India (plus 8.7 percent) and Mexico (plus 10 percent) in particular flourished. There were single-digit sales increases in France (up 1.3 percent) and Great Britain (up 1.8 percent). Only a few countries, including Australia (minus 1.9 percent) and South Africa (minus 0.2 percent), ended in the red in the first eight months of the year.

Prince Harry’s memoirs, which were published in German under the title “Reserve”, became a bestseller. The book was one of the five best-selling non-fiction titles in 12 countries during its first eight months, GfK Entertainment reports. In fact, it was the most popular book in the UK, Ireland and Italy. The late Lucinda Riley and her son Harry Whittaker’s novel ‘Atlas: The Story of Pa Salt’ by the late Lucinda Riley and her son Harry Whittaker were also in high demand as co-authors. It was, among other things, the most successful book in New Zealand and the Netherlands.

Travel books also saw a revival after the corona pandemic. “The travel book segment is booming and will be one of the fastest growing genres by 2023,” the report said. Half of all sixteen analyzed book markets even reported a double-digit increase in sales for this product group. In contrast, comics and especially manga suffered significant losses after a few very strong years.

When looking at the international bestseller lists, market researchers noticed the increasing importance of social media communities such as BookTok. Their best-known author Colleen Hoover conquered the fiction top 5 in ten countries with her blockbusters ‘It Ends with Us’ and ‘It Starts with Us’. (sda/dpa)