Aged like a fine wine: What's the ideal age for a backlist title?

Is there an ideal “age” for a book to see a resurgence in sales? Find out the answer to this question in this @BookNet_Canada blog post.
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Back in May, we took a look at the resurgence of backlist sales in 2020 to confirm the anecdata we’d been hearing throughout the winter — that backlist sales were growing across the country. Over the last few months, we’ve gotten more and more questions about backlist, so we thought that using data pulled from SalesData, BookNet’s national sales tracking service for the Canadian English-language trade book market, we’d go back to the numbers and dive a little deeper on the backlist. We know we all love to cozy up with a classic, but is there an ideal “age” for a book to see a resurgence in sales?

To find out, we pulled data for 2019 and 2020 (full years) along with 2021 year-to-date, and compared the sales of print books in each of the below “age categories”:

• Frontlist: books published in the same year as the sales period we’re comparing. For example, in the 2019 data shown here, frontlist titles are books with pub dates in 2019.

• 1 year old: books published the year before the sales period we’re comparing. For example, in the 2019 data shown here, these would be books with pub dates in 2018.

• 2–5 years old: books published 2–5 years before the sales period we’re comparing. For example, in the 2019 data shown here, these would be books with pub dates from 2014–2017.

• 6–10 years old: books published 6–10 years before the sales period we’re comparing. For example, in the 2019 data shown here, these would be books with pub dates from 2009–2013.

• 11+ years old: books published 11 years or more before the sales period we’re comparing. For example, in the 2019 data shown here, these would be books with pub dates in 2008 and earlier.

Total unit sales by pub date age, 2019-2020

Looking at 2019 and 2020’s total sales, we can see that, across all subjects, frontlist books sell best making up 37% of sales in 2019 and 35% in 2020.

However, there’s a pretty significant share of sales for books that are 2-5 years old. Sales of books in this pub date category made up 25% of all sales in 2019 and 26% in 2020 — the second-bestselling age range after frontlist titles.

Titles one year old made up 17-18% of sales, while titles 6-10 years old contributed 10-11% of sales. Books 11+ years old only contributed 10% of all sales.

Is 2-5 years the sweet spot for backlist sales glory? We took a deep dive into subjects to find out.

Something to keep in mind while looking at this subject-level data over 2019, 2020, and 2021 — our 2021 data is only for year-to-date, against full years for 2019 and 2020. We know that book buying trends up in the second half of the year, not only for holiday and back-to-school shopping, but also to pick up hot new reads! As we covered in our half-year review looking at the number of titles by publication date, September and October are typically the most popular publication months of the year.

Fiction unit sales by pub date age, 2019-2021

Like the All Subjects, our Fiction data shows a strong frontlist preference. But frontlist Fiction is far more heavily preferred: 60% of sales in 2019, 59% in 2020, and 48% so far in 2021. Unlike the All Subjects, titles 1 year old are the second-best performing age band, making up an average of 18% of sales, and then sales decline as books get older. Fiction buyers seem to pick up newer titles to add to their TBR piles.

Non-Fiction unit sales by pub date age, 2019-2021

Non-Fiction take the trend we saw in the All Subjects — a significant sales bump for titles in that 2-5 year old pub date bracket — to an even higher degree with those titles making up an average of 31% of all Non-Fiction sales. They’re even ahead of frontlist titles, which averaged 28% of sales across all three years. One year old titles made up 20% of sales in 2019, 18% in 2020, and 20% of sales so far in 2021; 6-10 year old titles made up 11% of sales in 2019 and 2020 and 13% in 2021; and 11+ year old titles made up 9% in 2019, 10% in 2020 and 12% in 2021.

Juvenile unit sales by pub date age, 2019-2021

Juvenile subjects see the highest percentage of backlist sales of any subject analyzed here, averaging only 24% of sales of frontlist over these three years. Titles in that 2-5 year old category outpace all others, making up to 30% of sales in 2019, 31% in 2020, and 33% in 2021.

1 year old titles made up 18% of sales in 2019, 19% in 2020, and 20% of sales so far in 2021; 6-10 year old titles made up 12% of sales in 2019, 14% in 2020, and 15% in 2021; and 11+ year old titles made up 12% in 2019, 13% in 2020, and 14% in 2021.

While Juvenile posts high numbers for those 2-5 year old titles, it’s worth noting that Juvenile subjects also post the highest average percentages in the 6-10 and 11+ pub date age brackets.

Young Adult unit sales by pub date age, 2019-2021

Frontlist reigns supreme in Young Adult subjects as well, making up an average of 33% of all YA sales, but as we saw in other subjects, that band of 2-5 year old titles also sees significant sales, averaging 28% of all YA sales. One year old titles averaged 19%, 6-10 year old titles averaged 14%, and 11+ year old titles averaged 6%.

So how is 2021 stacking up?

Total unit sales by pub date age, 2021 (year-to-date)

So far in 2021, sales of titles in that 2-5 year age bracket are just ahead of Frontlist sales, but the overall trend seems quite similar to what we’ve seen the past few years – especially since the latter part of the year tends to see a surge in publication dates and new releases that can contribute to a higher overall share of Frontlist sales. In 2021 year-to-date, 2-5 year old books make up 28% of all sales, compared with frontlist titles at 27%, 1 year old titles at 21%, 6-10 year old titles at 13%, and 11+ year old titles at 11%.

Bestselling 2-5 year old titles in 2021

1. Atomic Habits by James Clear (9780735211292)

2. The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Mackesy (9780062976581)

3. They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (9780062457806)

4. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (9780385741279)

5. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson (9780062641540)

6. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (9781250076960)

7. From the Ashes by Jesse Thistle 🍁 (9781982101213)

8. Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki (9781612680194)

9. Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari (9780771038518)

10. 21 Things You May Not Know about the Indian Act by Bob Joseph 🍁 (9780995266520)

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