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The print book market in the U.K. in the first seven months of 2025 has seen sales "broadly even against the previous year, although with a contraction in the number of books sold," the Bookseller reported.
From the beginning of January to the week ending July 26, book sales totaled more than £859 million (about $1.2 million), a 0.3% decline compared to the same period in 2024. Unit sales totaled 93.1 million, representing a 2.3% decline, though fiction was up 6%, to £281 million (about $376 million), even considering that 2024 was the category's all-time record.
Noting that "fortunes have fluctuated with the seasons," the Bookseller wrote that at the end of March this year, units were tracking down 2.1%, with sales "ever so slightly up thanks in part to a higher average selling price. But by mid-June, things were looking slightly better--the value upside had tripled and while volume was still down, it had clawed some of it back and was down just 1.5%."
June's Independent Bookshop Week arrived along with the summer's first heatwave across the south of England to deliver one of the worst seven-day periods of the year, the Bookseller noted. During that important week, unit sales declined 9.7%, with value falling 7.7%. Since then, sales have been down every week compared to 2024, "at least in part due to consistently hot weather across some areas of the country, tempting shoppers away from the town centers and into the parks and beaches."
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The Coalition for Books in Aotearoa New Zealand has released the Mahi Tahi Work Together: A Strategic Plan for the Aotearoa New Zealand Book Sector 2025–2030, which is the culmination of the publishing sector "committing to increase the visibility and sales of books by local authors as a priority." The report is available here.
Books+Publishing reported that the report aligns with the government's Amplify: Creative and Cultural Strategy for New Zealand (2024–2030) and "highlights goals and action areas that will drive growth, sustainability and greater local and international recognition of New Zealand's literary work."
Chair of the Coalition for Books Melanie Laville-Moore said: "Despite the current economic and social headwinds facing all retail sectors, domestic publishing revenue grew by 5% in 2024, with a slight 2.4% increase in revenue also generated in 2023 compared to the year prior. Local book lovers are reading more novels written by NZ writers than ever before, across all genres: crime, contemporary, historical and literary fiction. The 'cultural cringe' days where Kiwis shied away from reading books written by their own are gone. One of the aims of collaborating as a sector is to capitalize on the hunger Kiwis are showing for stories by and about ourselves."
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In Ukraine, Readeat Misto, a new bookstore dedicated to Kyiv, will open in September near the Arsenalna metro station, the New Voice of Ukraine reported. Dmytro Felixov, founder of the Readeat bookstore chain, made the announcement on social media, noting that the bookshop will offer curated collections focused on the city.
Describing the bookstore as the "most personal" project, created for those "in love with the city and ready for new stories and routes, and about books where the city lives," Felixov added that it will offer books about other cities worldwide, "from New York and Paris to fictional towns in the novels of Fitzgerald, Gilbert, or Stephen King." --Robert Gray