BookNet Canada has released The Canadian Book Market 2023, a comprehensive guide to the market with in-depth category data. For the first time, data on the circulation of library books in Canada is also included. This year's edition includes:
- Consumer data from BookNet's Canadian Book Consumer survey panel, including insights about book buying, discoverability, purchasing behavior, and more.
- French Canadian trade book market sales data from the Société de gestion de la Banque de titres de langue française (BTLF).
- A section featuring insights into the sales of books by Canadian contributors and Canadian-owned publishing houses.
- English Canadian trade book market sales data by subject from BNC SalesData for more than 50 subject categories, including total value and volume of sales; percent change from the previous year; the subject's share of the total market; weekly sales analysis; market shares by volume for the top 10 ranked publishers and distributors; and more.
In 2023, BookNet Canada tracked sales for 847,477 unique ISBNs, which translated to 48,791,765 physical books sold at a total value of C$1,102,387,350 (about US$815,043,695).
Combined, sales of juvenile and YA subjects accounted for the majority of the market share, at 40%. Nonfiction was in second place at 30%, with fiction third at 28%. In the French-Canadian market, juvenile & YA also had the biggest portion of sales throughout 2023, accounting for 44% of the trade market. Books by Canadians made up 12% of print book sales in Canada in 2023.
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Shah Muhammad Rais first opened his bookshop in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1974, and became famous in 2003 when Åsne Seierstad's bestselling book The Bookseller of Kabul was published. The Guardian recently spoke with Rais, who fled to the U.K. after the Taliban stormed Kabul in 2021. Last December, the Taliban raided the bookshop, locked the doors and ordered the employees to hand over all the passwords for the website and catalogue, before destroying the archive he had been building since he first opened the shop.
"When I heard what had happened I couldn't talk, I was frozen. My mind was not working," said Rais. "For two weeks after this happened I wanted to end my life. But suddenly I got my energy back."
Rais resolved to rebuild his collection from scratch. The Guardian noted that because his online business was global, he already had many contacts in countries such as Iran and Pakistan and across central Asia. He signed a deal with an Indian IT company to create a new website, Indo Aryana Book Co., and new books are being printed in India from pdfs and mailed into Afghanistan.
Whatever book-banning edicts the Taliban issues, Rais said, a population thirsty for books is finding ways around them. He described himself as a "proud Muslim" but said he abhors all forms of extremism and believes that people from all faiths and cultures can live together in harmony: "Books are a good, cheap weapon to fight against extremism.... If you destroy my bookstore a hundred times, I will rebuild it."
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In the latest The Spinoff Bookseller Confessional, Melissa Oliver, New Zealand book buyer at Unity Books in Wellington, shared thoughts on her chosen profession. Among the highlights:
Best thing about being a bookseller
Getting to recommend and share books you love is the best part of being a bookseller because then it means you get to share your joy and passion with others. My favourite thing is when customers return and tell me they love the book I recommended, or I hear on social media that someone picked up a book because of something we posted. It fills my little bookseller heart with joy that people are loving and enjoying what I or my co-workers recommend.
Worst thing about being a bookseller
You are always half finishing books! I read a lot each year but I hardly ever finish as much as I start. I really try to finish books but there are always new and interesting things coming in or books you have to read and get a sense of because they are being talked about. Plus all the reading, listening and watching you do around bookselling (i.e: reading The Spinoff, listening to RNZ, Booktok time)--I just can't keep up. The number of books I've "read" and actually only half finished, that's another question entirely. --Robert Gray