The pie charts illustrate the proportion of five listed types of books sold by a bookseller in three separate years 1972, 1992 and 2012. Overall, there was a significant increase in sales of adult and children’s fiction whereas that of biographies, travel, and other genres witnessed a decline, with adult fiction emerging as the best-selling genre by 2012.
As can be clearly seen from the pie chart, starting at about 20% initially, the sales of adult fiction rose impressively to 45% after 40 years, making it the leading genre. In addition, the rate of children’s fiction also grew, starting at the same level as adult fiction but increasing more moderately to 25% by the end of the period.
In contrast, in 1972, unspecified types of books initially outsold the rest, representing a quarter of the total sales. However, the figure then experienced a significant drop, and by 2012 had more than halved from 25 % to 12%. The similarities were also observed in biography sales, starting at 20% before slumping by 12% in 2012.