Canadian Book sales have increased by $46 million in the first six months of 2021. Total sales were $463,780,134. Comparing the first six months of 2021 with the first six months of 2019 show that the book market in Canada is still running behind 2019, but has gained back much of the COVID-19 related losses that happened at the start of 2020.
Looking at the category trends for the first half of 2021:
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The Juvenile/Young Adult category continues to dominate, accounting for 42% of all print book sales in the Canadian English-language trade market, up from its 41% share for the same period in 2020.
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Non-Fiction follows with 30%, down slightly from 32% in 2020.
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Fiction brings up the rear at 27%, up from 26% in 2020.
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The subjects/genres with the largest increases year over year are: Comics & Graphic Novels (up 92%, with the Manga category seeing significant increases of 145%), Poetry (up 81%) , Psychology (up 84%), and Young Adult/Fantasy (up 129%).
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Front list sales accounted for 27% of the market in 2021, up from 23% in 2020.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
