There was only one book published in Japan this past year that sold at least a million copies: TV personality Sawako Agawa's volume of essays, "Kiku Chikara: Kokoro Hiraku 35 no Hinto" (The Power of Listening: 35 Hints to Get People to Talk About Themselves), a relatively inexpensive paperback published by Bungeishunju. Though the media has been claiming for years that reading is on the decline, a single million-seller is still pretty low by Japanese publishing standards. Last year, for instance, there were ten, and two years ago five. According to the industry organ Shuppan News, the main reason is that there were no topical books for publicity departments to push effectively.

Publishers and wholesalers usually focus promotion on titles they think will sell easily, but this year couldn't find anything they really thought would catch the public's imagination. The conventional wisdom about million sellers is that a good portion of them are bought by people who aren't devoted readers. Remember the phenomenal sales for Haruki Murakami's "1Q84"? Many of the buyers were people who were caught up in the "event." They wanted to own a copy — or several, as the case may be. Some probably didn't even read it. Experts say this phenomenon no longer applies. Interests have become more compartmentalized, more diverse. People no longer automatically buy a book or record just because everyone else does.

According to a recent article in Tokyo Shimbun, book sales in general have dropped. The peak year was 1996, when 915 million books were sold for a total of ¥1 trillion in revenue. In 2011, the total number of books sold was 700 million and revenues were ¥819 billion. This year, the drop is expected to be even greater.