What The Latest Book Market Data Is Telling Us
I've been looking at the first half of 2026 book market data with interest this week, partly because it's my job to stay across these things and partly because, as a publisher, the numbers always tell a story beyond the headline figures.
The UK market grew by 1.5% in revenue terms in the first six months of this year, which sounds modest but is actually a decent result when you consider that volume sales fell slightly at the same time.
Readers are buying marginally fewer books but spending more on the ones they do buy. That's hopefully because people are starting to realise just how much books cost to make and their psychological price point has started to shift. We’ve hardly seen an increase in the price of paperbacks, especially novels in years, but slowly they are now creeping up. Ask any publisher and they will explain (at length) the increase in the price of paper!
What's really driving the growth is fiction, and specifically adult fiction. It now accounts for more than a third of all print books sold across the 19 territories in the analysis, and Crime and Thriller and romantasy are leading the charge. Freida McFadden is appearing in the top 20 bestseller lists in 13 countries. Rebecca Yarros and Sarah J Maas are cited as among the strongest growth drivers globally. BookTok is doing what social media does at its best, getting the right books in front of readers who didn't know they existed, particularly younger audiences and international markets.
Graphic novels are also having a significant moment, with value growth of over 30% in several markets. That's quite a shift, and it's one that publishers who have been slow to take the category seriously are going to need to catch up with.
The less comfortable picture is in non-fiction. Personal Development declined in every single territory except New Zealand, and non-fiction overall is under pressure across most markets. That might be a reflection of where people's heads are right now. When the world feels relentless and uncertain, escapism wins. People are reaching for stories, not self-improvement guides.
As someone who publishes as lot of business books, I also think there is a greater element of fear that AI is involved, there have been a lot of online platforms offering to “write your business book in minutes”, none of which gives confidence to the marketplace. Anyone who does this, in my opinion, is lazy and deserves not to get the sales, it’s a real detriment to the industry.
What I find most interesting as an indie publisher is not any single data point but the overall shape of what's happening. Readers know what they want and they're seeking it out. The formats, genres and platforms that make discovery easy are thriving, whereas, the ones that don't are struggling. That's always been true in publishing, of course, but the data right now makes it unusually visible.
As Christmas is quickly sneaking up, I expect we’ll see an even greater upturn in those fiction genres and stockings will definitely be full ;)