MOSCOW, February 14. /TASS/. Sales of books written by Stephen King, who used to be Russia's book king, plummeted by 22% in units sold as of the end of 2023, the Eksmo-AST publishing group said in a report.

Sales of authors that refused to cooperate with Russia after the start of the special military operation declined significantly in 2023, the publishers said. Unit sales of King’s books fell by 21.69%.

"The number of books published by Russian authors increased [amid this background]. There have been more authors from so-called friendly countries. Chinese comics became more popular in the Russian market and are among the best selling books," President of Eksmo-AST Oleg Novikov said.

King also ceded his top spot as the most published author according to the Russian Book Chamber. The American writer went from number one in 2022 to seventh in 2023 with a total of 400,900 books published.

It became known in spring 2022 that King would not renew his publishing contract in Russia. Two of his newest books were published in Russia in 2022 - Billy Summers and Gwendy’s Final Task co-authored by Richard Chizmar.