Sales Charts: Wimpy Kid sales decline

The “comics are dying” narrative that we’re all speaking about often applies solely to periodical comics in comics retailers, as a result of as everyone knows sales of manga and comics for youngsters are hovering.  Dog Man sells an unholy variety of copies, and the comics adjoining Wimpy Kids collection is wildly profitable.

However, even for these runaway bestsellers, sales may be slippery. Over at Publishers Weekly, Jim Milliot delivers a weekly evaluation of Circana Bookscan’s statistics on ebook sales, and sorry,  you should be a subscriber to learn it! But this week’s column had a pleasant serving to of doom and gloom, if you happen to’re into that form of factor. I usually don’t make a behavior of reposting these numbers, since they’re unique to PW, however periodically it’s attention-grabbing to have a look inside.

Milliot notes that ebook sales are down, as they’ve been all yr, for the reason that Pandemic High. For the primary 9 months of the yr, sales had been down 4.1% from 2022, which is unquestionably down however not a plummet.

However, for the week ending November 5, sales had been down 8%, which is unquestionably not nice. Celebrity bios, together with Britney Spears, Henry Winkler, and (tragically) Matthew Perry had been among the many greatest sellers, however sales had been usually down. Yearning for one more Colleen Hoover, grownup fiction was down 9.8%, nonetheless, the WORST fall was in….juvenile fiction!

The juvenile fiction section had the worst week, with sales falling 14%. Jeff Kinney’s latest Wimpy Kid ebook, No Brainer, was primary, promoting nearly 79,000 copies, however that was about 22,000 fewer copies than his Diper Overlöde offered a yr in the past.

If Wimpy Kid sales are falling, possibly we actually have reached Ragnarok.

To be honest, it’s worthwhile to hold two issues in thoughts. First, that is the 18th Wimpy Kid ebook and it nonetheless debuted at #1 total final week. That is a hit by any measure.

Also, Diper Overlöde is only a nice identify for a ebook and a Heavy Metal track.

Anyhoo, I did somewhat digging into the sales trajectory of Wimpy Kid, which, God Bless Jeff Kinney, releases a brand new ebook yearly on the finish of October, simply in time for the vacations. Old Reliable! Here’s how This yr’s ebook offered:

1

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Book 18 Jeff Kinney, Author Amulet Books, $14.99 (224) 978-1-4197-6694-7

Oct 2023

142,854

And Diper Overlöde from 2022:

2

–

1

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Book 17 Jeff Kinney, Author Amulet Books, $14.99 (224) 978-1-4197-6294-9

Oct 2022

173,214

AND #16 from 2021.

1

–

1

Big Shot (Diary of a Wimpy Kid #16) Jeff Kinney, Author Amulet Books, $14.99 (224) 978-1-4197-4915-5

Oct 2021

211,354

Every ebook debuted at #1, however as you possibly can see, sales fell by about 30,000 for every one. I really feel justified in invoking the spirit of Marc-Oliver Frisch and declaring “Standard Attrition.” So I wouldn’t name this a calamitous decline, only a very long-running collection kind of discovering its stage. And what number of years will Kinney hold doing it?

As lengthy as we’re taking a look at numbers, a couple of manga made the Adult Trade Paper listing (the primary quantity within the right-hand sales column is that week’s sales, the second is whole sales so far.)

12	2	2	Spy X Family, Vol. 10 Tatsuya Endo, Author Viz Media, $11.99 (200) 978-1-9747-4067-3	2000	5,730   25,070
13	11	4	Chainsaw Man, Vol. 12 Tatsuki Fujimoto, Author Viz Media, $11.99 (200) 978-1-9747-4058-1	2000	5,505   58,442

These are stable numbers.

And whereas I don’t usually reproduce your entire Publishers Weekly/Circana Bookscan Comics sales chart, which comes out as soon as a month, since we’re affected by such a devastating drought of sales numbers, simply this as soon as right here you go, numbers for October.

The Last Ronin should have offered a hell of lots of copies!

And for comparability, October 2022:

And now, are you able to have your thoughts blown? Here’s the highest ten from October 2019!

You can clearly see how manga completely dominated this class within the Pandemic Era. Sales are down in ’23, however nonetheless wholesome. It does make me somewhat unhappy to not see any US comics within the present high ten, however ICv2 additionally has Bookscan charts, and so they break issues down somewhat in another way, with one chart for manga and one other for “Superheroes” (which incorporates Nightmare Before Christmas, however okay) and one other for authors. I don’t have entry to the precise numbers on ICv2 – for which you can subscribe for $10 a month, which appears fairly cheap, trace trace trace. Anyway I gained’t run your entire ICv2 Superhero listing, however right here’s the highest 5.

The Author’s listing goes like this:

As lengthy as we’re surveying charts, the New York Times additionally has a month-to-month comics bestseller listing, and their November listing, based mostly on related information and their very own quantity crunching, seems somewhat completely different.

1. CHAINSAW MAN, VOL. 12 by Tatsuki Fujimoto

2. THE MYSTERIES by Bill Watterson. Illustrated by Bill Watterson and John Kascht

3. STACEY’S MISTAKE by Ann M. Martin. Illustrated by Ellen T. Crenshaw

4. LORE OLYMPUS, VOL. 5 by Rachel Smythe

5. TWENTY THOUSAND FLEAS UNDER THE SEA by Dav Pilkey

6. SPY X FAMILY, VOL. 10 by Tatsuya Endo

7. INVESTIGATORS: ALL TIDE UP by John Patrick Green

   I ran this listing all the way in which to #7 simply so I might level out that my pricey buddy John Patrick Green has a NY Times Bestselling collection. Congrats, John!

The different usually consulted bestseller listing is USA Today’s. They don’t break it down by style, however Wimpy Kid #18 is the #2 ebook this week and, curiously, Chainsaw Man #12 is all the way in which down at #71, under a few comics compilations by Stephen Pastic and even My Dress-Up Darling #10. 

No round-up of sales charts wouldn’t be full and not using a shout out to heroic librarian Dave Carter, who has been doing weekly Amazon comics bestseller rankings each Friday for a lot of, a few years. (Carter additionally did the month-to-month sales charts right here on the Beat again once we had such issues.) This week’s chart isn’t up as I write this however the November 3 one is and right here’s the highest 10:

1 (N). Ultimate Universe #1 (Kindle)
2 (-1). The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
3 (N). Superman #8 (Kindle) *
4 (-2). The Far Side 2024 Off-the-Wall Calendar
5 (N). Fantastic Four #16 (Kindle) *
6 (N). Fantastic Four #15 (Kindle) *
7 (N). X-Men #28 (Kindle)
8 (-5). Berserk Deluxe Volume 1
9 (+29). Five Nights at Freddy’s Graphic Novel Trilogy Box Set
10 (-5). Demon Slayer Complete Box Set

Carter provides somewhat commentary every week and this one is attention-grabbing:

• Suddenly and with out warning, the Kindle single points return to the Amazon comics chart. TBH we’re agnostic about whether or not they need to be included or not, we simply want Amazon would make up their minds and persist with it. In any occasion, Ultimate Universe #1 clocks in on the high spot this week, main the cost of 11 Kindle single points this week.

That Amazon consists of Kindle digital comics alongside books and field units makes this itemizing fairly…..possibly quirky is the phrase we’re searching for, however as we prefer to say, it’s all a metric.

Did you want this spin across the sales charts? Would you prefer it as a daily characteristic? Are you a quantity cruncher who want to write your personal sales evaluation? Sound off within the feedback and have an awesome weekend studying some good books.

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