Canada share of book sales 2013-2020, by subject

Non-fiction books accounted for 33.2 percent of units sold in Canada in 2020, down from 33.9 percent in the previous year. As has been the case for several years, juvenile and young adult books accounted for the majority of sales, while fiction books made up just over 24 percent of the total.

Canada’s book market

The number of books sold in Canada has ranged from 52 million to almost 54.7 million over the past few years. In 2019, when approximately 54.6 million units were sold, Canadian book sales revenue reached a record 1.12 billion Canadian dollars. While interest in books is as high as ever, the channels used to discover and purchase print literature have visibly changed since the proliferation of online shopping platforms. In a recent survey on Canadian reading behavior and preferences, 42 percent of readers listed online channels as their most used retail sales channels for buying books, with Amazon being the preferred choice for over half of respondents.

Reading trends and preferences

Despite the ever-increasing global popularity of e-books, paperback and hardcover print editions remain the most purchased book formats in Canada. According to a recent survey, some 20 percent of Canadian readers read print books daily, while another 22 percent did so several times per week. Another survey revealed that the frequency of listening to audiobooks in Canada has also considerably increased in recent years, with more Canadians consuming audiobook content on a daily basis than ever before.