books published per country per year

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Average Books Read Per Year by Country 2024

Most reports about average books read per year by country indicate time spent reading. India , Thailand , China , the Philippines and Egypt rank in the top five. This may include electronic media.

Time Spent Reading (2017-2022 Reports)

Keep in mind the new reports haven’t come out yet. This data comes from 2017, and many sources still report this same data as late as 2022.

• India – Ranking at number one, India spends approximately 10 hours and 42 minutes reading per week. This equals 556.4 per year.
• Thailand – It ranks number two, and the weekly reading rate totals 9 hours and 24 minutes. This is calculated at about 488.8 per year.
• China – This country comes in at third, reading 8 hours a week or 416 per year.
• Philippines – People from this land read 7 hours and 36 minutes of material per week. This equals 395.2 per year.
• Egypt – Coming in at five, this nation reads for 7 hours and 30 minutes per week or 390 minutes per year.

Countries that Reads (And Buys) The Most Books

Most of the data about countries that read the most books comes from 2017, but some of it may have come from as early as 2011. New reports after 2020 have not published yet.

• United States – Apparently, the U.S. reads about 275,232 per year. They make up 30% of the market share of book buyers.
• China – The country reads 208,418 books on average per year, and this totals about 10% of all books bought.
• United Kingdom – This nation reads about 188,000 every year. Record sales for books in this country reached at least 212 million.
• Japan – The country reads an average of 139,078 books per year. This makes up about 7% of the total market share.
• Germany – The 2017 reports didn’t specify how many books this country reads. However, it did indicate that this country purchased about 9% of the world’s market share. Books Per Person (2016-2022)

A 2016 Pew Research report indicates that the U.S. reads as high as 12 books per year with 50% of the nation reading four or fewer of them. By this time, Americans still read more paper books than e-books or audio books just like they did in 2012. However, the electronic media trend has grown.

The other half of Americans surveyed in 2016 read as many as seven books per year. This number is more likely if a person is in school and has reading assigned to them, especially in college.

More people have embraced electronic versus print media, however, especially after 2020. Nevertheless, a 2022 update of this data indicates that only 9% of people had read only digital media 12 months prior to this study. After deducting the 23% that don’t read books at all, it’s divided almost equally between reading a mixture of print and media and just print books. The Most-Read Books

Check out the most-read books of all time. This list includes the Holy Bible as number one, and the Holy Quran comes in at number two. The Harry Potter Series, collections of quotes from The Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse Tung (former Communist China Party leader), and Lord of the Rings.

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Which country reads the most books per year?

Frequently asked questions.

• Which Country Reads The Most? Average Books Read Per Year By Country - Content Blvd
• Average number of books read per year by country - Lectupedia

• Coronavirus
• New book titles published

New book titles published this year:

Sources and methods:.

The data on books published displayed on the Worldometer's counter is based on statistics published by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) .

Below is shown the number of new titles per year, per country, as of the latest year available:

References and useful resources

• The UNESCO book production statistics
• International Publishers Association - Data and statistics
• Best books on applied statistics and probability - UC Berkeley Statistics Graduate Association

Ebook Friendly

Which countries publish the most books (infographic).

We already know in which countries people read the most books . Wouldn’t it be interesting to compare the reading habits to the number of books published in each country?

There is an entry on Wikipedia that lists countries according to books published per year .

The list is based on data from UNESCO. The organization managed to collect figures from 123 countries. The latest available numbers total to approximately 2.2 million books published per year.

Eventually, this useful list has been visualized. Thanks to that, it’s available in an easier to share form. The world book publishing map was created by the team from a book discovery platform Bookstr .

The countries with more than 100 thousand books published per year are displayed in red. Orange is reserved for 50-100k and light green for 10-50k countries.

Are you surprised with the results? It’s China, not the US or the UK to top the list. The number of books published in China (440 thousand in 2013) is twice as big as in the UK.

Obviously, the list and visualization can only give the overall idea of the publishing around the world.

First of all, it’s extremely difficult to collect comparable figures from different countries. The years the data was collected spread between 2015 and 1991. Plus, there is always a question whether to count revised editions as new publications or not.

Now, coming back to the readers . It’s India, Thailand, and China, where readers spend the most time with books.

Books published per country per year

Asia and middle east.

Top 3 countries in Asia and Middle East:

• China – 440,000
• Russia – 120,512
• India – 90,000

North and Central America

Top 3 countries in Northern and Central America:

• United States of America – 304,912
• Mexico – 23,948
• Canada – 19,900

South America

Top 3 countries in South America:

• Argentina – 28,010
• Brazil – 20,792
• Colombia – 13,294

Top 3 countries in Europe:

• United Kingdom – 184,000
• Germany – 82,048
• Italy – 61,966

Top 3 countries in Africa:

• Egypt – 9,022
• South Africa – 5,418
• Nigeria – 1,314

Via NJ State Library on Twitter .

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Books Published Per Country Per Year

This chart shows Number of Books Published per country per year. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization ( UNESCO ) monitors both the number and type of  books published per country per year  as an important index of standard of living and education, and of a country's self-awareness.

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About: Books published per country per year

This page lists the number of book titles published per country per year from various sources. According to UNESCO, this is an important index of standard of living, education, and of a country's self-awareness. No standardised way to track the number of books published exists which can make it difficult to compare countries or track the industry as a whole. One method is to track how many International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) are registered by each country.

Books published per country per year

This page lists the number of book titles published per country per year from various sources. According to UNESCO , this is an important index of standard of living , education, and of a country's self-awareness. [1] No standardised way to track the number of books published exists which can make it difficult to compare countries or track the industry as a whole. [2] One method is to track how many International Standard Book Numbers (ISBNs) are registered by each country. [2]

List of countries

Countries by isbn, further reading, external links.

In descending order of number of new titles per year, as of the latest year available, sometimes "new titles and editions"

TOTAL: approximately 2,210,000

Many published books have an ISBN and it is a useful measure for how productive a country's publishing industry is. [2] However, this data is not collected for all countries. It may not represent the total number of books a country has published, as not every registered ISBN is then used and as books may have multiple ISBNs. [2]

Related Research Articles

The International Standard Book Number ( ISBN ) is a numeric commercial book identifier that is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase or receive ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.

Carlos Ruiz Zafón was a Spanish novelist known for his 2001 novel La sombra del viento . The novel sold 15 million copies and was winner of numerous awards; it was included in the list of the one hundred best books in Spanish in the last twenty-five years, made in 2007 by eighty-one Latin American and Spanish writers and critics.

The World Book Capital ( WBC ) is an initiative of UNESCO which recognises cities for promoting books and fostering reading for a year starting on April 23, World Book and Copyright Day. Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital carry out activities with the aim of encouraging a culture of reading in all ages and sharing UNESCO's values. The nomination does not provide a financial prize.

Google Books is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition (OCR), and stored in its digital database. Books are provided either by publishers and authors through the Google Books Partner Program, or by Google's library partners through the Library Project. Additionally, Google has partnered with a number of magazine publishers to digitize their archives.

The General Assembly of Uruguay or parliament is the legislative branch of the government of Uruguay, and consists of two chambers: the Chamber of Senators and the Chamber of Representatives. General Assembly has 130 voting members: 99 representatives and 30 senators, the Vice President of the Republic, who serves as President of the General Assembly, and the Senate has the right to vote. The legislature meets in the Legislative Palace in Montevideo. Both senators and representatives are chosen through proportional representation for five-year terms.

The International Publishers Association is an international publishing industry federation of national publisher associations representing book and journal publishing, founded in 1896 in Paris. It is a non-profit and non-governmental organization, to promote and protect publishing and to raise awareness for publishing in the context of economic, cultural and political development. The IPA represents the interests of the publishing industry on an international level.

These are the international rankings of Pakistan .

The following are international rankings for Iran:

HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally by libraries.

Tourism in Mauritius is an important component of the Mauritian economy as well as a significant source of its foreign exchange revenues. The tourism industry is also a major economic pillar on the island of Rodrigues; however, tourism has not been developed in Agaléga Islands. Mauritius is mostly appreciated by tourists for its natural environment and man-made attractions, the multi-ethnic and cultural diversity of the population, the tropical climate, beaches and water sports.

Chien-Fu Jeff Wu is the Coca-Cola Chair in Engineering Statistics and Professor in the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is known for his work on the convergence of the EM algorithm, resampling methods such as the bootstrap and jackknife, and industrial statistics, including design of experiments, and robust parameter design.

The vice president of El Salvador is a political position in El Salvador which is elected concurrently with the position of President of El Salvador.

The Venezuela International Book Fair is a national event organized as an initiative of the Venezuelan state since 2005 in various regions to promote reading culture and promote encounter between book readers and writers. The first editions of FILVEN were held only in Caracas, which followed the tradition of previous book fairs in Caracas dating from 1992. Years later, the fair began performing in various cities within the framework exhibition, on dates that did not necessarily coincide, during the same year. Regardless of the location and date, each regional fair retains the same name, slogan, edition number, year, honorees and image.

The Santiago International Book Fair is an annual book fair held in Santiago, Chile, during October–December. It is organised by the Chilean Chamber for Books.

Lil' Libros is a Los Angeles-based independent bilingual children's book publisher. Its titles are distributed by Readerlink, Amazon, Baker & Taylor, Brodart, Follett Corporations, and other independent distributors across the United States. It is a member of the American Booksellers Association, Publishers Association of the West, and Independent Book Publisher's Association.

In 2018, two firms in Spain ranked among the world's biggest publishers of books in terms of revenue: Grupo Planeta and Grupo Santillana. In 2013, there were 524,213 titles in print in Spain, including 76,434 new titles.

The Golden Book Awards were created to honor Uruguayan and foreign best-selling books published in Uruguay. The prizes are awarded by the Uruguayan Book Chamber (CUL).

• ↑ Wresch, William. Have and Have-Nots in the Information Age . Rutgers University Press, 1996, p. 39.
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 "The Global Publishing Industry in 2018" (PDF) . World Intellectual Property Organization. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-02-15.
• ↑ Japan Book Publishers Association (2017). "An Introduction to Publishing in Japan 2017-2018" (PDF) . Istat - National institute of statistic. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 3, 2019 . Retrieved March 25, 2018 .
• ↑ Российское книгоиздание в 2019 г.: удержать равновесие (unkniga.ru, 12.04.2020)
• ↑ . "HamshahriOnline.ir"
• ↑ "Book Market in India" (PDF) . November 30, 2013. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-04-25 . Retrieved March 9, 2015 .
• ↑ "Archived copy" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-08-15 . Retrieved 2016-06-18 . {{ cite web }} : CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link )
• ↑ Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (Spanish Association of Publishers Guilds)
• ↑ (German Booksellers Association)
• ↑ . Ministry of Culture and Tourism
• ↑ "Korean publishers association official statistics" . Kpa21.or.kr . Retrieved 2019-03-17 . (In Korean)
• ↑ Fabrizio Maria Arosio (15 January 2015). "Books production and reading in Italy" (PDF) . Istat - National institute of statistic . Retrieved 2015-01-31 .
• ↑ Tim Coronel. "The Market Down Under" . Thorpe-Bowker . Retrieved 2014-04-06 .
• ↑ Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan) "Archived copy" . Archived from the original on 2014-01-07 . Retrieved 2013-06-13 . {{ cite web }} : CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link ) , 2011 Publication Yearbook. (In English)
• ↑ "Cámara Argentina del Libro - statistics 2014" . Retrieved 2014-03-29 .
• 1 2 "ASEAN book publishers association report 2010" (PDF) . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ Ukrainian Book Chamber
• ↑ Polish Book Institute Archived 2017-02-11 at the Wayback Machine .
• ↑ "Statistical Yearbook of the Czech Republic 2020" (PDF) . Czech Statistical Office . Retrieved 2021-03-02 .
• ↑ "Cámara Colombiana del Libro -statistics 2017" (XLXS) . Retrieved 17 June 2019 .
• ↑ Koninklijke Vereniging van het Boekenvak
• ↑ "Malaysian Book Publishers Association - Country Report: Malaysia 2016" (PDF) . 7 May 2016 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ Autori: Mirabela Tiron, Izabela Badarau (2009-12-04). "La fiecare miliard de euro din PIB, in Romania se publica 113 titluri noi de carti, la fel ca in Anglia" . Ziarul Financiar . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ "Book publishers, new titles published by commercial category, country of control" . Statistics Canada. Archived from the original on 2019-07-02.
• ↑ "Hong Kong: Books & Periodicals" . Abigraf.org.br. 2006-07-24. Archived from the original on 2012-03-30 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 INE
• ↑ National Book Chamber of Belarus (In Belarusian)
• 1 2 | "Producción Y Comercio Internacional Del Libro En Centro América" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-09-12 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ "SBPA - Publishing in Singapore" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-07 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ "Publishing in Egypt Soars with 12,000 Titles"
• ↑ "Издавачка делатност и штампа – Књиге и брошуре, 2019" (PDF) . The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia. 2020-12-10. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2021-03-02.
• ↑ "Magyarország könyvtermelése" . Archived from the original on 2013-12-10 . Retrieved 2013-04-04 .
• ↑ , Details book market Norway
• ↑ , National statistical institute of Bulgaria
• ↑ , ČTK 29.07.2007 16:54, Slovak Newspaper Pravda
• ↑ The National Library of Israel.
• ↑ "CANIEM statistics 2012" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-08 . Retrieved 2014-03-13 .
• ↑ "Arab books and human development" , Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ) , Spring, 2004, Eugene Rogan
• ↑ "Cámara Chilena del Libro - statistics 2012" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-07 . Retrieved 2013-11-18 .
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 UNESCO "Africa" Archived June 18, 2006, at the Wayback Machine , Book production: number of titles by UDC classes, UNESCO Institute of Statistics
• 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 " "Asia", Book production: number of titles by UDC classes" . UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Archived from the original on 2009-02-05.
• ↑ "Cámara Peruana del Libro - Compendio Estadistico Sobre El Libro En El Perú" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-13 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ "Svenska Förläggareföreningen - statistics 2010" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-10-04 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ Estonian print output statistics 2015–2017 Archived 2018-06-29 at the Wayback Machine — National Library of Estonia
• ↑ "International Publishers Association country report: Saudi Arabia" . June 30, 2016. Archived from the original on January 26, 2019 . Retrieved March 25, 2018 .
• ↑ THE PAKISTAN NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 2012 Archived November 5, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
• ↑ Lebanon - Book Production Data Archived October 31, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
• ↑ Edition et Livre au Maroc 2018 / 2019 (Report). Casablanca: King Abdul-Aziz Al Saoud Foundation for Islamic Studies and Human Sciences. 2020. ISSN   2605-6380 .
• ↑ New Zealand gov publications | Archived May 25, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
• ↑ "Cámara Ecuatoriana del Libro - El Libro En El Ecuador" (PDF) . Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-01-07 . Retrieved 2012-06-14 .
• ↑ "Statistical summary of material published in Iceland in the year 2019" . Icelandic National Bibliography . National and University Library of Iceland . Retrieved 2021-03-02 .
• ↑ Frankfurt Book Fair. "Information on the Syrian book market" . Archived from the original on 14 December 2010 . Retrieved 12 April 2011 .
• 1 2 UNESCO "Oceania" Archived June 18, 2006, at the Wayback Machine , Book production: number of titles by UDC classes, UNESCO Institute of Statistics
• 1 2 "Book production: number of titles by UDC classes" . UNESCO Institute of Statistics. Archived from the original on 2004-03-28.
• ↑ Whitney, G. (1989). The UNESCO book production statistics. Book Research Quarterly, 5(4), 12–29.
• Wresch, William. Have and Have-Nots in the Information Age . Rutgers University Press, 1996. ISBN   0-8135-2370-2
• Fink-Jensen, Jonathan (2015). Book Titles per Capita . (Excel dataset for the period from 1500 until 2010 CE, worldwide)
• IPA. "IPA Annual Report 2014" , International Publishers Association, retrieved October 25, 2014
• Alison Flood. "UK publishes more books per capita than any other country, report shows" The Guardian, retrieved October 25, 2014
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China and the US make nearly half the world’s books

Two years ago the world’s publishers collectively put out over 1.6 million books. About half of them came from just two countries.

The International Publishers Association (IPA) is a non-profit based in Geneva that studies and promotes global book publishing. Each year the association releases its global publishing stats, and for the past several years China and the US have dominated.

The IPA report released in October (pdf) shows just how big a slice of the pie the two countries hold in terms of new titles. Of the books released in 2015 by the 25 biggest book markets, China published 28% of the total, and the US 20%.

The counts include re-editions of older titles, but not self-published books. The IPA collects their data from a number of sources that count using different methodology, so the association admits it’s not a perfectly consistent dataset. Still, the data give a picture of book publishing powers today:

This shouldn’t come as a shock; China and the US are also the two countries with the most GDP. Another way of thinking about the data is to look at books per capita, which gives us a better sense of book culture within each country. By that measure China is much farther down the list of the top 25 book markets, with the US in the middle. The UK, Iceland, and Denmark are at the top.

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Average number of books read per year by country

•   indicators and statistics

Mean number of books read per year is indicated for each country, among adults (including non-readers). The figures are presented based on data provided by research centers or government institutions in charge of culture and education in the respective country. Sources are indicated in the endnotes.

Older versions

• 02/24/2021: version 1.3
• 01/31/2021: version 1.2

Argentina: Sistema de información cultural de la Argentina. 2017. “Encuesta Nacional de Consumos Culturales 2017: Libros” . https://encuestadeconsumo.sinca.gob.ar/indicadores/libros/cantidad-de-libros-le%C3%ADdos-en-el-a%C3%B1o/2   ↩︎

Brazil: Instituto Pró-Livro - IBOPE. 2019. “A 5ª edição da Retratos da Leitura no Brasil: O leitor de livros” . https://www.prolivro.org.br/5a-edicao-de-retratos-da-leitura-no-brasil-2/a-pesquisa-5a-edicao/   ↩︎

Canada: Department of Canadian Heritage. Booknet Canada. 2005. “Reading and Buying Books for Pleasure: 2005 National Survey” . http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection/CH44-61-2005E.pdf   ↩︎

Chile: Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes (CNCA). 2014. “Encuesta de Comportamiento Lector 2014” . http://plandelectura.gob.cl/recursos/encuesta-de-comportamiento-lector-2014/   ↩︎

Colombia: Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística (DANE). 2020. “Encuesta de consumo cultural (ECC). Anexos 12 años y más: Lectura, Cuadro 19” . https://www.dane.gov.co/index.php/estadisticas-por-tema/cultura/consumo-cultural   ↩︎

Estonia: Statistics Estonia. 2010. “Residents of Estonia continuously take a big interest in book reading” . https://www.stat.ee/en/uudised/news-release-2010-167   ↩︎

France: Ipsos pour le Centre National du livre. 2019. “Les Français et la lecture en 2019: Étude complète. p. 22” . https://centrenationaldulivre.fr/donnees-cles/les-francais-et-la-lecture-en-2019   ↩︎

Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI). 2022. “Módulo sobre Lectura (MOLEC)” . https://www.inegi.org.mx/programas/molec/#Documentacion [We have calculated the mean number of books read per capita (including non-readers) based on the microdata provided.]  ↩︎

Peru: Instituto de Opinión Pública de la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (IOP-PUCP) . 2015. “Boletín N° 137: Libros y hábitos de lectura. p. 7” . https://repositorio.pucp.edu.pe/index/bitstream/handle/123456789/160984/BoletinIOP_PUCP_137.pdf   ↩︎

Portugal: Centro Regional para el Fomento el Libro en América Latina y el Caribe (CERLAC). 2012. “Comportamiento lector y hábitos de lectura. p. 14” . https://cerlalc.org/publicaciones/comportamiento-lector-y-habitos-de-lectura-una-comparacion-de-resultados-en-algunos-paises-de-america-latina/   ↩︎

South Korea: China Daily. 2011. “Reading rate falling in China” . http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2013-04/19/content_16423992.htm   ↩︎

Spain: Federación de Gremios de Editores de España. 2021. “Hábitos de Lectura y Compra de Libros Año 2021” . https://www.federacioneditores.org/documentos.php   ↩︎

United States: Pew Research Center. 2016. “Book Reading 2016: Appendix A” . https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2016/09/01/book-reading-2016/pi_2016-09-01_book-reading_a-02/   ↩︎

Venezuela: Instituto Autónomo Centro Nacional del libro (CENAL). 2012. “Encuesta del Comportamiento Lector, Acceso al Libro y la Lectura en Venezuela, año 2012. p. 41” . appendix/Venezuela-2012.pdf   ↩︎

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See full-size image Percentage of adult readers of books by country. Licenced under CC BY-NC: When sharing, please include a link to this page. Percentage of adult readers of books is indicated for each country...

Books published per country per year

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In descending order of number of new titles per year, as of the latest year available, sometimes “new titles & editions”.

Source: Wikipedia.org & Vividmaps.com

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Related research and data

• Annual per capita consumption of books
• Manuscript production per century, 6th to 15th century
• Production of printed books per half century

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Number Of Books Published Per Year

• The total number of new book titles released annually is around 4 million.
• It can be estimated that between 500,000 to 1 million of these new titles are published through traditional publishers .
• At least 1.7 million self-published titles each year are considered to be produced.
• However, as many self-published authors do not use a trackable ISBN, this number would be increased further. 
• In 2010, Google calculated that there were just under 130 million books published globally. 
• Penguin Random House alone publishes 85,000 titles each year, which is the largest number of titles published by a major publishing house.
• The United States had 39,876,731 lifetime ISBN registrations as of 2020, by far the highest total of any country.
• As of 2022, more than 12.25 million ebooks are estimated to be published on Kindle.
• There were at least 71,000 audiobooks published during the year of 2020.
• As of 2008, books written in English made up 21.84% of all books published.

Number of books published by major publishers

The Big 5 dominates the book publishing market in terms of revenue from book sales when compared to independent publishers. However, when it comes to their total number of titles released, they publish between 10% and 20% of all new titles annually.

• 85,000 titles are published each year by Penguin Random House, including 15,000 in print format and 70,000 in digital format.
• Annually, HarperCollins releases more than 10,000 new publications.
• Across both print and digital formats, Hachette Book Group publishes more than 2,100 titles a year as of 2022.
• Each year, Simon & Schuster publishes over 2000 titles.
• Although not a Big 5 publisher, Scholastic is the largest US publisher in terms of children’s books, with over 750 new books annually.

Number of books published each year per country

• Per the given data available, China produced the largest number of titles for a given year during 2013 with 444,000 titles.
• As of the same year, the United States produced 304,912 titles.
• The United Kingdom produced 186,000 titles during the year of 2020.
• Furthermore, Japan, Indonesia, Italy, Russia, France and Iran have all exceeded 100,000 titles published in recent years.

A graph is given below to show the annual number of books published for the top 5 ranked countries:

ISBN per country

ISBN registrations enable books to be identified throughout the supply chain, in particular by publishers, retailers and libraries. They can also be used to track the minimum number of books produced by each country annually.

• Looking at ISBN registrations by country, the United States had the largest number of lifetime registrations with 39,876,731 as of 2020.
• The second largest number of lifetime registrations was from the United Kingdom with 7,900,000.
• Germany had the third largest number of lifetime registrations with 5,564,800.
• For 2020 data alone, again the US had the highest number of registrations with 3,931,270.
• The Republic of Korea had the second largest number of 2020 registrations with 329,582.
• Again, Germany came in third with 284,000 registrations for the year.

* ISBN data possibly underestimated

A graph is given below to show the top 5 ranked countries by total lifetime ISBN registrations:

A graph is given below to show the top 5 ranked countries by 2020 ISBN registrations:

Number of books published by language

• A study of books published by language from 2008 showed that the most common publishing language for books was English, making up 21.84% of books analyzed.
• This was almost double the amount of publications compared to the second-most popular language, Chinese (Mandarin), which made up 10.99%.
• German was the third-most popular language for book publications, making up 9.78% of the total books published.
• In addition, Spanish, Japanese and Russian each exceeded 5% of the total published titles.

A graph is given below to show the top 5 most common publishing languages by percentage:

Number of books published per capita

• In terms of the number of books published per capita, the UK published 2,875 titles per million residents, as of 2014.
• This was more than 1,000 titles greater than Taiwan and Slovenia who ranked in joint-second place with 1,831 titles.
• Australia ranked much lower, with 1,176 titles per million residents. 
• Dropping lower again, the US registered just 959 titles per million residents.

Number of books published each day

• Based upon a total annual number of 4 million books published each year, it can be estimated that almost 11,000 books are published daily.
• This works out to around 457 titles an hour and 8 titles a minute.
• The total number of books published includes all types of releases, from recognized authors by major publishers to unknown authors with independent publishers .
• Within the US alone, approximately 2,700 new titles are released daily.

Number of books published by category

Fiction books .

• It is estimated that Fiction books make up around 11% of books published each year.
• Approximately 440,000 Fiction books are published annually.

Nonfiction books

• It is estimated that Nonfiction books make up around 88% of books published each year.
• Approximately 3.52 million nonfiction books are published annually.

Poetry books

• It is estimated that Poetry books make up around 1% of books published each year. 
• Approximately 10,000 Poetry books are published annually in the US.
• Based on the market share of books globally, it can be estimated that around 40,000 poetry books are released worldwide each year. 

Number of books published on Amazon

• At least 1.4 million self-published books are released through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing annually.
• However, the total number is expected to be much higher as it doesn’t account for self-published ebooks that do not have an ISBN.
• In addition to these, Amazon also publishes more than 1,000 books through its own imprints each year.

Total number of ebooks published on Kindle

• However as of 2019, this number stood at just over 6.75 million.
• Each year, it is estimated that the number of ebooks available on Kindle increases by 1.83 million titles.

Number of audiobooks published by year

• As of 2021, in the US more than 74,000 audiobooks were published. 
• This was a 4.23% increase over 2020’s 71,000.
• Out of the last 15 years, only 2009 and 2017 recorded negative growth of audiobooks produced.

Number of books published by female authors

Female authors have a high representation across best sellers in general and also dominate the Historical, Romance and Horror/Paranormal genres. Demographics show that in the US, 50.45% of authors within the US were female as of 2021. 

• As of 2020, a study found that 629 of the 1,000 best selling fiction titles had female authors (62.9%).
• 27 of the best selling fiction titles were co-authored by both male and female authors.
• By looking at the “general and literary fiction” category, female authors made up an even greater 75%.

Number of books published by authors of color

Across the publishing industry, efforts have been made to increase the representation of authors of color alongside other minorities. Although minority representation has increased, recent studies show that the industry is still largely unbalanced .

• As of 2020, 10.38% of books listed on the New York Times bestsellers lists were written by authors of color.
• During 2018, a study found that 11% of books published during the year were written by authors of color.
• As of 2019, 19.6% of young adult book authors published in the UK were people of color, more than doubling 2017’s 7.1%.
• Between 2017 – 2020, less than 6% of children’s books available in the UK were authored by people of color.

Number of children’s and young adult books published annually

• In the US, the preliminary number of children’s book titles published was 21,878 during 2009.
• The preliminary number of young adult book titles published for the year was 4,644.
• The number of children’s titles published for the year were 371.10% higher than the number of YA titles produced.
• As of 2020, it is estimated that 10,000 children’s books are published annually in the UK.

Number of books published FAQ

Who is the author with the most books published.

• Corín Tellado is a Spanish romance writer that has released more than 4,000 titles during her career. 
• This large number of titles would unofficially make her the author with the most works published. 
• However, according to Guinness World Records, the founder of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard was given the title of the most prolific writer of all time.
• He published 1,084 titles between the years of 1934 and 2006.

What is the total number of books published in history?

• A calculation by Google in 2010 estimated that there were just under 130 million books published globally.

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Number of books published per year per capita by country in Europe

Being an author myself, I was very much interested in the number of books published in different European countries. I wasn’t able to find a good source of information, so I decided to make one myself.

The following map shows the number of books published per year per capita (or per “1 million capita”, to be more precise). Most of the data is from the years 2013 and 2012, but some of the figures are older (no more than five years). I wasn’t able to find data for some countries, which are labelled as N/A in the map. See the end of the article for sources .

Also note that the data comes from various national associations of publishers, so the titles that have not been published by a publishing house (such as self-published books, books published by private companies and state institutions, etc.) or that have been published by a publishing house that is not a member of the national association are not included in the figures. New editions (but not reprints) are included.

Edit: Denmark was removed because the data turned out to include also books not published by publishing houses. Added Latvia . The figure for Poland was corrected; there is an error in the IPA report the original figure was taken from. The figures for Estonia and Croatia were taken from a mistaken source and were changed to N/A. The source for Sweden is no longer available online, and the figure was suspicious, so it was changed to N/A.

The underlying blank map was made by Tindo and licensed from fotolia.com. If you want to share the map, please share a link to this webpage instead of sharing just a picture.

For those interested in the total numbers of books published, here they are:

Finally, the sources: The figures for Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Russia, Turkey, and the UK are taken from the IPA 2013 report . Other countries: Belgium , Bulgaria , Greece , Latvia , Lithuania and Poland . The rest is taken from this Wikipedia article (if up-to-date enough).

By the way, I have written several educational ebooks . If you get a copy, you can learn new things and support this website at the same time—why don’t you check them out?

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How Many Books Does the Average Person Read?

Chris M. Arnone

The son of a librarian, Chris M. Arnone's love of books was as inevitable as gravity. He holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Missouri - Kansas City. His novel, The Hermes Protocol, was published by Castle Bridge Media in 2023 and the next book in that series is due out in winter 2024. His work can also be found in Adelaide Literary Magazine and FEED Lit Mag. You can find him writing more books, poetry, and acting in Kansas City. You can also follow him on social media ( Facebook , Goodreads , Instagram , Twitter , website ).

View All posts by Chris M. Arnone

As a visitor to Book Riot, you certainly read a lot of books: more than an average person . Your TBR pile grows faster than you can read. Your friends know better than to accompany you to a bookstore if they have another engagement that day. You collect bookmarks, have bookshelves in every room, and judge everyone you meet by the books in their home.

But what about those average people? Not just what are average people reading, but how many books does the average person read?

Who is an Average Reader?

I’m going to handle this statistically rather than trying to paint a picture of who an average reader is. People are all over the place. My mom, for instance, maybe reads a book a year despite having retired from a large library system. It’s just not her thing. On the other end, I know at least a few people who manage to finish 200+ books each year. Reading is their primary hobby.

Reading habits also vary widely from country to country. Literacy is directly tied to poverty, so indigent countries have lower averages. Cultural differences also contribute to reading rates, causing differences between countries that are relatively equally affluent. So let’s look at the numbers, shall we?

U.S. Readers

The Pew Research Center conducts a lot of detailed research and statistical analysis in the United States of America. Their study published in 2016 found that 72% of Americans had read a book the preceding year, a number that rose to 75% in 2022 . This increase is likely attributed to the pandemic and how much more time everyone was spending at home. That same 2016 publication showed that on average, Americans read 12 books a year.

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I know, that number struck me as fairly low, but not entirely unexpected. However, that number doesn’t really tell the whole story. Remember that if 72% of people were reading at least one book a year in 2016, then 28% weren’t reading even one. And some people read hundreds. To really answer the question “how many books does the average person read?”, we need to look at the median instead of the average.

Statistically, averages are useful, but are heavily skewed by outliers. The median is the mathematical breaking point for a statistical group, with roughly half of all numbers sitting above or below it. The median for the 2016 study and the better indicator of the average reader in America is four. The average American reader reads four books each year. Feeling better about your TBR pile now, aren’t you?

Pew’s research also delves into what formats and genres people are reading, as well as how race, gender, education levels, and professions affect reading habits. Women tend to read more than men. White, non-Hispanic people read more than Black, non-Hispanic or Hispanic people. Higher education levels correlate to more reading. And CEOs read a lot, though I doubt they’re reading a lot of fiction. Print is still leading the way as the chosen method of reading, with ebook and audio trailing behind.

Readers Around the World

The reading public is much larger than the United States, of course. So what about the rest of the world? Lectupedia gathered data from reputable sources for 14 different countries, including the Pew data I referenced above, to give a small snapshot of reading across the globe.

The lowest numbers in their findings came from Argentina (1.6 books per year), Mexico (1.7 books per year), and Colombia (1.9 books per year). Commanding the lead is a tie between France and Canada, both with their people reading an average of 17 books per year. While medians are not provided in this dataset, which would better answer how many books does the average person read, the average generally has some correlation to the mean.

What Does All This Mean?

All of this fascinating data means we should probably be less judgmental when a friend boasts about finishing a dozen or two books in a year. It means we should do what we can to help literacy globally by volunteering for or donating money to organizations like Book Aid International and World Literacy Foundation .

And don’t feel bad about your TBR. Keep reading and collecting. You’re doing fine.

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Additional Information

Show sources information Show publisher information Use Ask Statista Research Service

October 2019

United States

title count includes print and digital books

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