Canelo / Arts Council England

Fiction General Value

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Canelo / Arts Council England | 

12

   

Literature in the 21st Century: Understanding Models of Support for Literary Fiction

In absolute terms then, the value of the literary fiction market is not 

healthy. The overall picture for printed books, and especially fiction, is  

at best muted, and at worst represents a permanent and significant  

fall back. 

It is instructive, however, to compare the general situation with the 

US. There, book sales rose 2.5% in 2015 and 3.3% in 2016, a move 

that was generally regarded as extremely positive, as this followed 

years of falling sales. But sales for fiction were not healthy, falling 1% 

in 2016

1

. Bookstore sales went from $17bn in 2007 to just $10.9bn in 

2014, although this had climbed again to nearly $12bn by the close of 

2016. Much of this is to do with ebooks, digital sales, the recession and 

perhaps most worryingly, a shift in consumer habits

2

. Sales are still a 

third down on 2007. In Japan the situation is even worse – the market 

peaked in 1996, with year-on-year declines posted every year since. In 

this context, the UK market looks comparatively healthy.

Value doesn’t tell the whole story, however. While quantities of books 

sold roughly track value, they also reveal some interesting trends in their 

own right – trends that are critical to understanding how literary writers 

are to support themselves today. It is not just the total value of books 

that has fallen – it is the price at which individual copies are sold. 

According to the Nielsen BookScan data, the average selling price for 

hardback fiction is down 44% in real terms since 2001. In 2016 the 

average hardback fiction title sold for £10.12 whereas in 2001 it sold for 

£11.91. Adjusted for inflation (using the UK Office of National Statistics 

Consumer Price Inflation [CPI] Index as the benchmark) this would 

equate to £18.06 in 2016 terms. 

The average selling price for paperbacks is down 25.2% in real terms 

over the same period. In 2016 the average paperback fiction title sold 

for £7.42 against a 2001 figure of £6.89. Adjusted for inflation, the 2001 

price would have been £10.45. This means that even for the value to 

stay still, many more books would need to have been sold, whereas 

instead there were substantial declines in volume terms. Writers and 

publishers are hence hit with a double whammy: falling book sales 

overall, and falling dividends for the sales they are making. It is not clear 

how long these two trends will continue. There is, however, evidence 

that the price of hardbacks is starting to increase (discussed in section 

three below). We believe this increase, like much of the decreases, can 

be explained by the introduction of the ebook format. 

1  

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/72450-print-book-sales-rose-again-in-2016.

html 

2

   http://publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/69388-bookstore-sales-had-first-gain-in-eight-

years-in-2015.html and  

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/72792-bookstore-sales-rose-2-5-in-2016.

html 

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