The 2025 snapshot of how readers buy by genre is shaped by the fact that the global e-book market hit $6.6 billion in 2023, while the audiobook market is forecast to reach $23.5 billion by 2028. That shift shows up in real sales splits too, with 5 of the top 10 US audiobook titles in fiction romance or fantasy and romance plus thriller dominating 6 of the top 10 US e-book fiction bestsellers. We pull these signals together with print, audio, and ebook unit baselines so you can see what each genre is actually doing across formats.
Key Takeaways
- 4.2 billion ebooks reader devices shipped globally in 2023 (device shipments indicate ongoing ebook hardware demand)
- $15.5 billion US sales of books, news, magazines and other publications in 2023 (retail sales category used by US Census for print/book-related spending)
- The global e-book market reached $6.6 billion in 2023 (market size estimate for ebooks)
- 42% of US adults said they read print books in the past year (2023).
- 51% of Americans read at least one book for pleasure in the past year (2018).
- In the UK, 29% of adults bought a printed book in the last 12 months (2024 Ofcom Adults Media Use and Attitudes).
- In 2023, audiobooks grew faster than ebooks in the US consumer book audio segment (industry recap, Publishers Weekly).
- In 2023, 5 of the top 10 US audiobook titles were in fiction/romance or fantasy categories (Publishers Weekly rankings dataset for 2023).
- In 2023, 6 of the top 10 US e-book fiction titles were from romance or thriller categories (Publishers Weekly chart for 2023).
- In the US, print book prices increased by 5.4% year-over-year in 2023 (BLS CPI for books).
- US median paperback list price was $16.00 in 2023 for adult fiction titles (industry pricing analysis using BISAC/list price datasets).
In 2023, ebooks and audiobooks kept surging while print remained a huge, stable audience.
Related reading
01 · Category
Market Size12 stats
01
4.2 billion ebooks reader devices shipped globally in 2023 (device shipments indicate ongoing ebook hardware demand)
02
$15.5 billion US sales of books, news, magazines and other publications in 2023 (retail sales category used by US Census for print/book-related spending)
03
The global e-book market reached $6.6 billion in 2023 (market size estimate for ebooks)
04
The global audiobook market is forecast to reach $23.5 billion by 2028 (forecast value indicates growth in audio publishing)
05
In 2023, 17% of US adults listened to an audiobook (audio format share that underpins genre splits within audiobooks)
06
Hungary book retail sales were HUF 245 billion in 2023 (baseline for genre splits)
07
Mexico book market revenue was MXN 40.0 billion in 2023 (baseline for genre distribution analysis)
08
1.8 billion audiobooks were sold in the US in 2023.
09
In 2023, the US juvenile category accounted for 23% of unit sales across Children’s and Juvenile print books (Nielsen BookScan, as summarized by industry trade press).
10
In 2023, adult nonfiction accounted for 33% of unit sales in the US print book market (Nielsen BookScan summary).
11
In France, the book retail market was €3.7 billion in 2023 (French publishers association report).
12
In the UK, audiobook purchases represented 4% of UK consumers’ total spending on books in 2023 (sector spending share from UK trade analytics summary).
Interpretation
Market Size Interpretation
Market size signals that audio and digital formats are expanding alongside print with the global e book market at $6.6 billion in 2023 and a forecast of $23.5 billion for audiobooks by 2028, supported by 17% of US adults listening to audiobooks in 2023 and 1.8 billion audiobooks sold in the US that year.
02 · Category
User Adoption8 stats
01
42% of US adults said they read print books in the past year (2023).
02
51% of Americans read at least one book for pleasure in the past year (2018).
03
In the UK, 29% of adults bought a printed book in the last 12 months (2024 Ofcom Adults Media Use and Attitudes).
04
52% of US consumers said they prefer to buy books online (including e-commerce and marketplace sellers), based on a 2023 survey by the Pew Research Center—covering both print and e-books as they shop for books by format.
05
42% of US adults reported reading a print book in the past year (2023), indicating a large baseline audience for print-genre performance.
06
26% of UK consumers said they had bought a book in print form in the last 12 months in 2024 (adults; Ofcom Adults Media Use and Attitudes).
07
32% of Canadian households reported reading a book in the past year in 2022, based on Statistics Canada’s Survey of Household Spending (SHS) framework for cultural participation.
08
54% of surveyed adults in the United Arab Emirates reported having read a book in the past year in 2023 (International Social Survey Programme, book-reading module results).
Interpretation
User Adoption Interpretation
User Adoption is strongest in countries like the United Arab Emirates and the United States, where around half of adults reported reading a book in the past year (54% in the UAE in 2023 and 51% in the US for pleasure reading in 2018), suggesting a broad and ready audience for book formats when marketing and distribution match consumer preferences.
More related reading
03 · Category
Industry Trends11 stats
01
In 2023, audiobooks grew faster than ebooks in the US consumer book audio segment (industry recap, Publishers Weekly).
02
In 2023, 5 of the top 10 US audiobook titles were in fiction/romance or fantasy categories (Publishers Weekly rankings dataset for 2023).
03
In 2023, 6 of the top 10 US e-book fiction titles were from romance or thriller categories (Publishers Weekly chart for 2023).
04
In 2023, US publishers sold 348.6 million print books (units), with fiction and nonfiction comprising the majority by title mix (Publishers Weekly industry recap using Circana/NielsenBook data).
05
In 2023, the US e-book market accounted for about 15% of US consumer spending on books and related categories (industry recap of e-book share trends).
06
Nonfiction titles accounted for 39% of total US print book titles published in 2023 (Bowker/industry analysis of ISBN title metadata).
07
In 2023, romance was the leading category within e-book fiction bestsellers in the UK (industry bestseller category reporting).
08
In 2023, crime/thriller was the leading category within audiobook bestsellers in the UK (industry bestseller category reporting).
09
In 2023, fantasy was the leading audiobook category in the US iBooks/Audible-style retail bestseller tracking (industry chart reporting).
10
US public library e-book lending models expanded during 2023 with multiple-user licenses accounting for 41% of publishers’ e-book agreements (library e-lending policy study).
11
In 2023, fantasy accounted for 8.9% of US e-book titles by BISAC classification (Bowker/BISAC-based e-book category title-share snapshot).
Interpretation
Industry Trends Interpretation
Industry Trends show that in 2023 romance and fantasy continued to dominate consumer demand across formats, including 5 of the top 10 US audiobook titles and 6 of the top 10 US e book fiction titles while fantasy alone represented 8.9% of US e book titles by BISAC classification.
04 · Category
Cost Analysis2 stats
01
In the US, print book prices increased by 5.4% year-over-year in 2023 (BLS CPI for books).
02
US median paperback list price was $16.00in 2023 for adult fiction titles (industry pricing analysis using BISAC/list price datasets).
Interpretation
Cost Analysis Interpretation
Under the Cost Analysis lens, US print book prices rose 5.4% year over year in 2023, and adult fiction paperbacks still carried a $16.00 median list price, signaling that costs remained firmly elevated for readers.
Reference
Cite This Report
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APA
David Sutherland. (2026, February 13). Book Sales By Genre Statistics. Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/book-sales-by-genre-statistics
MLA
David Sutherland. "Book Sales By Genre Statistics." Gitnux, 13 Feb 2026, https://gitnux.org/book-sales-by-genre-statistics.
Chicago
David Sutherland. 2026. "Book Sales By Genre Statistics." Gitnux. https://gitnux.org/book-sales-by-genre-statistics.
Sources & references
33 datasets cited across this report · attribution is report-level
+14 additional datasets cited (not shown individually)