Book Industry Stats for Australian Authors / Publishing Stats 2023
January 24, 2023
Here’s a running list of useful and interesting stats and data about writing, being an author, and the Australian and global publishing industry. I’ll add to this list throughout 2023 so bookmark this page to return to it over time.
How many books do bookstores return to publishers?
Approximately 15% of books are returned by bookstores to publishers under what is known as ‘sale or return’. Statistic quoted in the Inside the Green Room podcast episode ‘Bookseller’ (Feb 2023) and you can read more about it in my blog post/find the link to listen to it here.
Australian Amazon Kindle stats
- 50% of Australians only read between one and five books in 2022.
- Physical books remain the majority of books read (67.9%).
- The most popular genre is mystery (31%), followed by true crime (26%), non-fiction (24%) and romance (20%).
Source: ‘Read All About It‘, an article about the latest Amazon Kindle research, Thuy On on ArtsHub, 19 Jan 2023