Which months have the HIGHEST BOOK SALES?

[mikeyboy_esq]

Recently read that the months right before Christmas and Summer have the highest number of book sales. Does anyone know for sure if that is true or not? If so, is that for all genres and all formats (e.g., eBook, ppk and hard cover), or do different genres and formats have their own best months for sales?

[williamadams]

i have heard that
never bothered to check it out
not sure it is significant

now if you self published something like the christmas box which was a huge seller then you might want to have it out in advance of xmas to allow for promotion in time for the selling season which starts in november or earlier. how long would it take you to generate buzz to peak by december? they just published the 20th anniversary edition.

ppk is a walther pistol james bond used

what is the point of waiting
if the book is ready release it

trying to rush it for some date could make it worse and hurt sales
and if you got it right and are early then why wait more to release

https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Box-20th-Anniversary-Trilogy/dp/1451696434/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1496350128&sr=1-1&keywords=the+christmas+box

[ostarella]

I could only find one site that actually addressed sales. Basically December (Xmas presents) and January (gift cards), the August (end of summer vacation/beginning of school), and slight advantage for October (no reason given). Now, with that in mind, the most valuable advice I saw related to release dates - and December was listed as the worst time to release. Why? Because you not only don't have time to hype the book, but you're competing with all other Christmas gift options. Obviously, if you're self-publishing, that's worth bearing in mind. If you're going trade publishing, I'd let the experts worry about that, and pay more attention to the various agents/publishers' windows for submission, if they even have them (typically this seems to be the smaller publishers).

[mikeyboy_esq]

Thx Ostarella. I'm not trying to time the market for a new book release. Rather, I am curious about the best months for book sales b/c I had my best month yet for book sales in May and now I'm curious if that was due to the cyclical nature of book sales in general (some months tend to have better sales overall as an industry), or due to something else. Generally, strong Dec. and Jan. book sales seem to make logical sense to me, but I'm still a little unsure about the rest of the year. My books are non-fiction, so I'm also curious if that makes any difference in which months are stronger than others.

[ostarella]

It's amazingly difficult to find any real data on sales cycles - everything seems more concerned about release dates or submission dates. You would think a simple "What months produce the highest sales for books/novels/nonfiction" would give sites with graphs and statistics - nope. In this crazy world of "Let's track EVERYTHING", nobody seems interested in this.

[williamadams]

[quote="ostarella"]It's amazingly difficult to find any real data on sales cycles - everything seems more concerned about release dates or submission dates. You would think a simple "What months produce the highest sales for books/novels/nonfiction" would give sites with graphs and statistics - nope. In this crazy world of "Let's track EVERYTHING", nobody seems interested in this. [/quote]
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months dont create sales

we track the actual sales averages when people tend to buy more or less of something
which are biased by new car release dates, sales at xmas, and special sales for classes of merchandise
consumers reports has used this data to tell people when the best time to buy certain items would be

i have to think that some book organisation has that data if we looked in the right place for it
but it would be meaningless unless we think that our book is a commodity that would have more sales because the industry average had more sales in a different month

if our book is themed with a holiday then you better get it out in advance AND promote the bleep out of it to get any added sales because of the timing. otherwise unless your book is a perfect gift for xmas it wont matter when you release it. might even be better to hit slow sales times when there is less active competition for sales.

whenever they decide to release a harry potter book you can know there will be a big spike in book sales that month

overall imho when you release it wont matter squat
it is how well you promote the book and the author that will matter to sales of your book

[ostarella]

Well, obviously the timing of release, promotion, subject, etc have much more to do with sales increases/decreases than the month - but if, as the OP stated, you're trying to get some handle on why sales were up one month versus another, industry statistics would be helpful. It's one of the variables to track, along with what promotional activities you had done, distribution, competition, etc. It's what retailers do, and even though one's publisher does that, it certainly can't hurt to have some understanding of it oneself.

[williamadams]

[quote="ostarella"]Well, obviously the timing of release, promotion, subject, etc have much more to do with sales increases/decreases than the month - but if, as the OP stated, you're trying to get some handle on why sales were up one month versus another, industry statistics would be helpful. It's one of the variables to track, along with what promotional activities you had done, distribution, competition, etc. It's what retailers do, and even though one's publisher does that, it certainly can't hurt to have some understanding of it oneself.[/quote]

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seek and we will find

more books are sold on sunday than other days

more books are sold at 1&2 pm than other hours

more books are sold in last 3 days before the last day of the month
they drop way down on the last day

you can see month by month here
https://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/aap-statistics/
and the census bureau has more historical book data shown at
http://www.fonerbooks.com/booksale.htm
which contradicts the other data as january is very high in that census survey

this has all kinds of book data
https://www.statista.com/topics/1177/book-market/

and this data contradicts the other two
https://www.statista.com/statistics/207468/monthly-retail-sales-of-us-book-stores/

from the first source i found
https://lunch.publishersmarketplace.com/aap-statistics/

most adult books were sold in november
followed by october and then december

jan to july are lowest and about equal
in august they go up aug and sept
and peak in october

so what is anyone going to do with that information

if your book is not out there it wont sell at all
and if it is then it depends on your promotion efforts
you wont suddenly start selling cause more books are sold in october and it pulls yours along for the ride

[ostarella]

Thank you for posting those sources.

[williamadams]

you are welcome

interesting info
but i dont see how we use such data to sell our books