Nielsen Bookscan collects book sales numbers from outlets and compiles them into statistics that give us a view what kind of books have been popular lately. If we take last year’s sales numbers and compare them with 2013 numbers, we can find out which genres were trending in 2014.
In 2014 in the US, three best-selling nonfiction book genres were religion, reference and general nonfiction.
Three trending genres in 2014 were self-help (+15% from 2013), biographies (+12%) and religion (+12%).
Three genres that were losing readers were humor (-13% from 2013), computers (-12%) and history/law/politics (-11%).
Here are the numbers (units in thousands).
| 2013 | 2014 | % CHANGE | |
| Adult Nonfiction | |||
| Religion/Bibles | 32,012 | 35798 | 12% |
| Reference | 32,642 | 31989 | -2% |
| General Nonfiction | 29,509 | 28533 | -3% |
| Biography/Autobiography/Memoir | 20,425 | 22803 | 12% |
| Health/Fitness/Medicine/Sports | 22,488 | 21574 | -4% |
| Business/Economics | 15,473 | 16604 | 7% |
| Cooking/Entertaining | 15,363 | 15492 | 1% |
| History/Law/Political Science | 17,080 | 15220 | -11% |
| Self-Help | 8,546 | 9848 | 15% |
| Crafts/Hobbies/Antiques/Games | 8,314 | 8485 | 2% |
| Performing Arts | 7,358 | 7706 | 5% |
| Travel | 7,658 | 7417 | -3% |
| Art/Architecture/Design/Photography | 6,739 | 6984 | 4% |
| Humor | 5,604 | 4897 | -13% |
| Computers | 5,311 | 4652 | -12% |
| House & Home/Gardening | 2,309 | 2130 | -8% |
| Total Adult Nonfiction | 236,833 | 240,130 | 1% |
| Adult Fiction | |||
| General Fiction | 36,314 | 33524 | -8% |
| Romance | 34,585 | 30885 | -11% |
| Suspense/Thrillers | 22,161 | 20111 | -9% |
| Mystery/Detective | 14,884 | 14304 | -4% |
| Graphic Novels | 7,659 | 8669 | 13% |
| Classics | 7,817 | 7578 | -3% |
| Fantasy | 8,615 | 7526 | -13% |
| Religion | 4,925 | 4174 | -15% |
| Science Fiction | 4,448 | 4142 | -7% |
| Occult/Psychological/Horror | 4,474 | 3329 | -26% |
| Action/Adventure | 2,619 | 2239 | -15% |
| Western | 2,088 | 2232 | 7% |
| Total Adult Fiction | 150,590 | 138,712 | -8% |
Fiction books lost a lot of readers during 2014. All fiction genres, except for graphic novels and westerns sold fewer books in 2014 than in 2013.