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Book Publishing Statistics & Author Data (2026): Updated Throughout the Year
This is a living page that will evolve throughout 2026. Over the course of the year, I’ll be adding publishing statistics and industry data for authors, with a focus on Australia and international markets.
The data tends to trickle in at first, then arrive more quickly as the year unfolds. Bookmark this page if you’d like a practical, reality-based view of the publishing industry—including author income statistics, book sales benchmarks, and market trends that help put your own publishing goals into context.
Previous years stats for 2023 and 2024 and 2025 are also available.
Number of bookstores in Australia
- Bookstores in Australia in 2026: approximately 600 physical bookstores
- Number of places you can buy a book in Australia including secondhand stores, online retailers and general shops: approximately 1700
- $1.6 billion in annual booksales in Australia, of which 43% is via bookshops (NielsenIQ Book Data figures as shared by the Australian Booksellers Association – ABA)
Share of Amazon’s print book market
- Amazon share of print book market in Australia: under 20%
- Amazon share of print book market in UK: over 50%
- Amazon share of print book market in USA: over 70% 😵💫
- *Stat shared by the Australian Booksellers’ Association (April 2026)
The 2025 Rakuten Kobo Book Report (released Feb 2026)
Big rise in people reading “immersive fiction” ebook and audio downloads in Australia plus wellness and biographies in nonfiction.
Kobo’s announcement talked about how readers are “gravitating toward expansive fantasy worlds, emotionally driven romance and deeply personal life stories, using books to both tune out the noise of the real world and make sense of it”. Or as they say…books that offer “sustained escape”.
“Australian readers leaned heavily into escapism in 2025… science fiction and fantasy genres growing 34 percent year-on-year, marking the fastest-growing genre categories in the country.”
Top romance genre was contemporary followed by romantacy, but sales or paranormal, gothic (think vampire romance) increased by 19%.
In the words of Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn: “In a world that often feels relentless, we’ve observed a consistent truth: reading remains a sanctuary. Books offer us a unique opportunity to choose our own world, if only for a few stolen moments each day. In 2025, we saw readers globally turning to stories and knowledge as a much-needed escape, whether on a busy morning commute or during a quiet evening wind-down.”
The top 10 audiobooks are:
- Onyx Storm(Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- The Impossible Fortune(Richard Osman, Penguin Audio)
- Fourth Wing(1 of 2) (Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- Nobody’s Girl(Virginia Giuffre, Transworld Digital)
- Emily Wilde’s Map of the Otherlands(Heather Fawcett, Little, Brown Audio)
- Atomic Habits(James Clear, Cornerstone Digital)
- Fourth Wing(2 of 2) (Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- The Thursday Murder Club(Richard Osman, Penguin Audio)
- Iron Flame(Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- The Body Keeps the Score(Bessel van der Kolk, Penguin Audio).
The top 10 eBooks are:
- Onyx Storm(Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- Fourth Wing(Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- Iron Flame(Rebecca Yarros, Piatkus)
- The Wedding People(Alison Espach, Audible)
- The Impossible Fortune(Richard Osman, Penguin eBooks)
- The Unquiet Grave(Dervla McTiernan, HarperCollins)
- The Women(Kristin Hannah, Macmillan)
- The Hallmarked Man(Robert Galbraith, Sphere)
- Atmosphere(Taylor Jenkins Reid, Penguin)
- Quicksilver(Callie Hart, Hodderscape).
What were the top selling books* in Australia?
Top selling books in Australia in 2025 (numbers released in 2026) included non-fiction The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins and Sawyer Robbins) with 373,450 copies sold, followed by Rebecca Yarros with her fiction title Onyx Storm selling 240,150 copies. Recipe Tin Eats: Tonight by Nagi Maehashi was the top selling Australian book coming in at #5 on the list with 149,310 books sold. Colouring in books took out spots #4 and #5, with the top fiction book by an Australian author Jane Harper’s Last One Out selling 111,870 copies in just 3 months.
*calendar year sales, not including ebooks or audiobooks
Source: Sydney Morning Herald with data from NielsenIQ BookScan , Melanie Kembrey, What Australians Read in 2025 (Jan 8 2026):