Featherstone 
Book, publishing, and author statistics 2025 – running tally
During 2025 this page will fill up with stats of interest to authors from Australia and around the world. The data drop starts off slow and then speeds up toward the end of the year. Bookmark this page as it will help you understand more about the industry, how much authors earn and how many books you might sell.
Previous years stats for 2023 and 2024 are also available. This was also an interesting post about how many copies of your book might you sell and what it takes to be a bestseller.
Are you tapping into the habits of Australia’s young book buyers?
NielsenIQ BookData Books & Consumers ANZ report reveals some intriguing trends among younger Australian book buyers including: “The 25–34s now account for 21% of all book purchases and are active across formats, leaning slightly toward ebooks. They’re big fans of Adult Fiction (second only to the 65–84s) and are more likely than most to be medium or heavy buyers, regularly picking up multiple new titles every few months. Their broad tastes and consistent engagement make them a valuable segment for shaping future publishing strategies. Close behind are the 35–44s–a group that bridges older Millennials and younger Gen X–and they’re the biggest book-buying segment overall, responsible for a quarter of all purchases. Their preferences lean strongly toward print and audio formats, and their buying spans a wide range of genres. Notably, they account for over a third of Children’s book sales. With the highest proportion of heavy buyers among all age groups, they’re a powerhouse audience for driving both volume and long-term loyalty.”
Insights from literary agents, August 2025
Read this blog post to get a handle on the Australian publishing market and what it’s looking for.
Actual sales numbers for true crime books in Australia
With the “Mushroom Trial” court case investigating the deaths of three innocent people completed and Erin Patterson found guilty, three new books will be brought out by publishers in record time, including “Recipe for Murder” by author Duncan McNab, “The Mushroom Murders” by Greg Haddrick and “The Mushroom Tapes: Conversations about a Triple Murder Trial” by three acclaimed Australian authors Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. So, what stats are there around the sales of true crime books in Australia?
According to Nielsen Bookscan Data (as reported in The Sydney Morning Herald’s Book List newsletter by Jas0n Steger), books about the John Bradley Murdoch and the murder of Peter Falconio and the escape of Joanne Lees in the Australian Outback sold the following in the first three months after the verdict :
- Richard Shears’ Bloodstain (by March 11, 2006 had sold 9471 copies, worth $188,000)
- Robin Bowles’ Dead Centre (7189 copies, $149,000)
- Sue Williams’ And Then the Darkness (5722, $129,000)
- Roger Maynard’s Where’s Peter? (3367; $76,000).
Expectations for sales in Australia and the hot genres in 2025
Insights and info on the Australian book market from a panel discussion at Byron Writers Festival 2025…just before the event had to be cancelled due to torrential weather.
The cost of publishing books in Australia
Alice Grundy wrote this piece for The Conversation titled: Who’s eating publishers’ lunch? The rising costs and shrinking margins of Australian books. It’s an interesting article about the price of books in Australia, costs of manufacturing
Australian Book Market stats (2024 released March 2025)
According to NielsenIQ: “Last year, the print book market in Australia decreased in both volume and value from 2023, with volume sales across all formats equating to 68.9m (-1%), and value sales shrinking 3% to $1.29bn (from $1.33bn). The average price Australian book buyers paid for a book meanwhile fell by 2% to $18.70 . This marks the second year in a row that the Australian book market contracted, from record highs in 2022. However, 2024 was still up 14% in volume and 13% in value from five years previously.” More from the NielsenIQ report here re: Australian and NZ book market in 2024.
International sales of fiction grew more than non-fiction (data released March 2025), Australian & New Zealand physical book revenue declines (2024)
Publishers Weekly reported on the release of international publishing statistics by AC Nielsen and Gfk Entertainment at London Book Fair.
- Across 18 international territories, non-fiction titles only saw growth in 6 territories, compared to growth in 16 regions for fiction titles.
- There was significant grow for fiction titles, especially among Spanish-speaking countries (this may be of interest to Australian authors choosing which languages to translate their books into.)
- The New Zealand book market had a ‘notable revenue decline’ (-6.6%), and The Australian book market was down (-3.1%).
- FYI: The statistics were compiled from ‘physical point of sale data’ which leaves out the huge number of indie author books being sold.
- More details in The Publishers Weekly report here.
Audible Australia Stats / Audiobooks (Feb 2025)
Stats as shared by Karen Appathurai Wiggins, head of regional content, APAC at Audible from a sponsored feature for the ABIA’s in Books+Publishing, Feb 26, 2025
- “While Australian Audible listeners’ favourite genres have remained consistent over the last five years, the biggest climber has been romance, jumping in popularity from the tenth most popular genre in 2018 to consistently ranking in the top five in the last three years. Further, in Australia, time spent listening to romance content has grown by 91% year-on-year in 2024, compared with 2023.”
- “In 2024, Audible Australia had seven romantasy titles in our top 25 bestsellers, compared to only two in 2023 and zero in 2022.
- “Audible.com.au’s catalogue includes more than 850,000 audio titles.”