The pie charts provide information regarding the proportion of five different kinds of books based on their popularity according to the sales of a bookseller between 1972 and 2012.
Overall, it is clear that the fiction genres showed an upward trend, with Adult fiction becoming by far the most popular category by the end of the period. Conversely, sales for Biography, Travel, and Others all saw general declines over the four decades.
Looking at the details, the most noticeable feature is that Adult and Children’s fiction followed an upward trend, starting with the same percentage of 20% in the initial year. The figures for both types of books increased to 25% for Adult and 22% for Children’s fiction, respectively in 1992. Additionally, the proportion for Children’s fiction witnessed a slight rise to 25% while Adult fiction reached its peak as the dominant category with 45% in 2012.
In contrast, the remaining categories lost market share by 2012. In 1972, the Others category held the largest individual share at 25%, but this consistently declined to 20% in 1992 and dropped further to 12% by 2012. Biography sales initially matched the fiction categories at 20% in 1972, but fell to 15% in 1992, eventually bottoming out at 8% in 2012. Lastly, Travel books showed a temporary rise from 15% in 1972 to 18% in 1992, before dropping back down to 10% in the final year.