US Bible surge led by first-time buyers

In the last year, the sale of Bibles in the US has jumped by a staggering 22%, despite overall book sales in the country only rising by less than 1%.

This increase, reported by Circana BookScan, has been attributed to people searching for stability and assurance, and is the latest sign of an encouraging trend of growth for Bible sales in the US. In 2019, 9.7million Bibles were bought by Americans, whereas last year that number leapt to 14.2 million, and in the first ten months of this year has already hit 13.7 million (Forbes).

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, the president of the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association put the surge down to people ‘experiencing anxiety … related to artificial intelligence and election cycles’ and looking for ‘assurance that we’re going to be okay’.