"It is also worth noting that the two major book markets that had the best sales performances in 2022 vs. 2019—Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta—have been popular destinations for people leaving older metropolitan areas."
This is also really bothering me—it feels like they're saying the multiple colleges and bookstores in a massive metropolitan area have nothing to do with sales or growing readers. In the last decade, multiple indie stores opened in the DFW area—Interabang Books (2017), Wild Detectives (2014), Poet's Oak Cliff (2020 I think?), Monkey & Dog Books (2018 maybe?), and I know the Barnes & Noble locations (I think there's 3?) have been doing largely fine.
Nowhere Bookshop (founded by best-selling author Jenny Lawson) also opened in San Antonio in...2019 I think.
Here in Portland, Maine, we did get a bit of Covid population bump, but I don't think anywhere near a 37% increase! I don't believe we've gained any new independent bookstores in the last couple of years, and our only big box bookstore is the one at the mall that used to be a Borders. My sense was that customers did rally around the indies quite a bit (but I don't know if we did that more than people elsewhere).
I wonder if your hypothesis about bookstores joining Bookscan during the period might also be in play--we're not that big a city, so if one of the 3 bigger indies in town suddenly had its sales in the mix, that probably would cause a bit of a jump in the numbers.
(And there's a new indie opening this fall, so it would seem that there's some optimism in the local bookselling landscape here in general.)
I knew manga's been a very large slice of book sales for a number of years now (I think you've probably mentioned it before in the newsletter), but I hadn't realized how big a jump it had taken in 2021 until I saw your comment and I started Googling around--wow!
If you are self-publishing, be sure to publish using Ingram! (Or sign with a reputable indie publisher) Don’t use KDP or they won’t touch you with a ten foot pole.
I live just a little bit north of Dayton, Ohio and I have not been successful in getting anyone here to care about opening a bookstore, B&N or indie for the past 30 years! We are building a pretty large library building so maybe we’ll become readers. Maybe I’m just whining.
I am surprised to see Grand Rapids/kalamazoo on the list, though! 
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see two (TWO!) Central Florida metro areas on the fastest growing book market list. I can't speak to the other cities, but both Orlando and Tampa have seen big population growth in the past two years. (Both are in Zillow's top 10 hottest real estate markets for 2022; Tampa is #1.) We've seen an influx of people whose ability to buy pricey (for our area, anyway) homes suggest they may have more disposable income for books than many existing residents.
As for new indie bookstores, St. Pete got the amazing Tombolo books in 2020, and it seems to be doing well. We have fewer indies in the Orlando area than pre-pandemic, but our one remaining indie opened a second location in 2020, so that might be contributing to growth. If I had to guess (and that's really all I can do) why Orlando and Tampa are on that list, I bet it's a combo of middle/upper class pop. growth, indies having a moment/anti-Amazon sentiments, and generally more interest in book buying/books as cultural capital (thanks, BookTok/BookTube/Bookstagram!).
Pure speculation, but I'm also wondering if there are just more books more people want to buy being published? Or more awareness of those titles thanks to social reading platforms?
"It is also worth noting that the two major book markets that had the best sales performances in 2022 vs. 2019—Dallas/Fort Worth and Atlanta—have been popular destinations for people leaving older metropolitan areas."
This is also really bothering me—it feels like they're saying the multiple colleges and bookstores in a massive metropolitan area have nothing to do with sales or growing readers. In the last decade, multiple indie stores opened in the DFW area—Interabang Books (2017), Wild Detectives (2014), Poet's Oak Cliff (2020 I think?), Monkey & Dog Books (2018 maybe?), and I know the Barnes & Noble locations (I think there's 3?) have been doing largely fine.
Nowhere Bookshop (founded by best-selling author Jenny Lawson) also opened in San Antonio in...2019 I think.
It's also probably worth looking at whether or not library use went up or down in all of these markets.
Here in Portland, Maine, we did get a bit of Covid population bump, but I don't think anywhere near a 37% increase! I don't believe we've gained any new independent bookstores in the last couple of years, and our only big box bookstore is the one at the mall that used to be a Borders. My sense was that customers did rally around the indies quite a bit (but I don't know if we did that more than people elsewhere).
I wonder if your hypothesis about bookstores joining Bookscan during the period might also be in play--we're not that big a city, so if one of the 3 bigger indies in town suddenly had its sales in the mix, that probably would cause a bit of a jump in the numbers.
(And there's a new indie opening this fall, so it would seem that there's some optimism in the local bookselling landscape here in general.)
Yes! Maybe it’s just the increase in manga and other genres somehow being very Portland-appealing
Anything's possible!
I knew manga's been a very large slice of book sales for a number of years now (I think you've probably mentioned it before in the newsletter), but I hadn't realized how big a jump it had taken in 2021 until I saw your comment and I started Googling around--wow!
Yes, manga is another possible factor here!
If I were an enterprising author with a book coming out, I'd be reaching out to every indie, B&N and library in those mid-sized cities.
If you are self-publishing, be sure to publish using Ingram! (Or sign with a reputable indie publisher) Don’t use KDP or they won’t touch you with a ten foot pole.
I live just a little bit north of Dayton, Ohio and I have not been successful in getting anyone here to care about opening a bookstore, B&N or indie for the past 30 years! We are building a pretty large library building so maybe we’ll become readers. Maybe I’m just whining.
I am surprised to see Grand Rapids/kalamazoo on the list, though! 
I can't tell you how happy it makes me to see two (TWO!) Central Florida metro areas on the fastest growing book market list. I can't speak to the other cities, but both Orlando and Tampa have seen big population growth in the past two years. (Both are in Zillow's top 10 hottest real estate markets for 2022; Tampa is #1.) We've seen an influx of people whose ability to buy pricey (for our area, anyway) homes suggest they may have more disposable income for books than many existing residents.
As for new indie bookstores, St. Pete got the amazing Tombolo books in 2020, and it seems to be doing well. We have fewer indies in the Orlando area than pre-pandemic, but our one remaining indie opened a second location in 2020, so that might be contributing to growth. If I had to guess (and that's really all I can do) why Orlando and Tampa are on that list, I bet it's a combo of middle/upper class pop. growth, indies having a moment/anti-Amazon sentiments, and generally more interest in book buying/books as cultural capital (thanks, BookTok/BookTube/Bookstagram!).
Pure speculation, but I'm also wondering if there are just more books more people want to buy being published? Or more awareness of those titles thanks to social reading platforms?
My one observation is that San Antonio and Columbus are both among the country's dozen biggest cities, not exactly small markets!
Same with Phoenix! Their own data kinda disproves their thesis imo.
All bigger than Boston and SF, which they cite as the slow growers. Weird.
Right! So how is "book markets" calculated, as it is clearly not the same as population