One way to do that is by monitoring the numbers. Book publishing statistics often indicate trends that can help guide your career.

For example, when authors grumble about Amazon and say they aren’t going to list their books there, I point out that Amazon sells 83 percent of the e-books purchased in the U.S.

Some authors need guidance on pricing. Knowing the average e-book price helps keep you from pricing yourself out of the market.

Others debating whether to create an audiobook version need to know if people are listening to audiobooks.

With that in mind, I’ve compiled this statistics collection to help guide your decision making.

I’ve only included information I can verify, meaning, I haven’t linked to statistics in articles that don’t provide research source attribution. That kind of information isn’t always accurate.

Bookstores

In 2018, sales of books in U.S. bookstores were down from 2010, going from $15.24 billion that year to $10.28 billion in 2018.

There were 1,835 independent bookselling companies running 2,470 independent bookstores in 2018.

In 2017, 24 percent of people purchased the same number of print books in stores as they did online.

Formats: print, e-book, audiobook

Print

In 2017, 879,6000 self-published books were published in a print format and 129,600 were e-books.

As of early February 2019, 72 percent of U.S. adults say they have read a book in any format in the past 12 months . That number is about the same as what it was in 2012.

According to that research, Americans report that they prefer the print book format, with 65 percent of adults saying they had read a print book in the year before the survey.

As of April 2017, 47 percent of U.S. readers purchased up to five print books within the past 12 months.

E-books

32 percent of U.S. readers purchased up to five e-books as of April 2017.

Until February 2017, indie authors accounted for 40 percent of U.S. e-book sales.

Almost all libraries offer e-books — 94 percent of them do.

U.S. trade e-book sales revenue in 2018 was $1.02 billion, down slightly from the year before.

About 26 percent of those in the U.S. read e-books.

Almost one-quarter — 24 percent — of sales revenue for e-books on Amazon is from indie books.

Audiobooks

As of early February 2019, 20 percent — one in five Americans — reported listening to at least one audiobook in the past 12 months.

U.S. audiobook sales revenue grew from $900 million in 2009 to $2.5 billion in 2017.

Downloaded audio is the fastest growing format, with 181.8 percent revenue growth from 2014 to 2018.

Who reads books?

Gen Z, Millennials/Gen Y, and Gen X read the most books.

Those ages 18 to 29 as of 2018 read the most — 84 percent of them read a book in any format in the previous 12 months. People ages 30 to 49 in 2018 were the next largest group of readers, at 74 percent.

Publishers

During 2018, publishers’ net revenue (not retailer/consumer sales) increased 1.5 percent to $16.19 billion.

That year, publishers sold more online — $8.03 billion — than they did in physical stores — $6.90 billion.

Also in 2018, publisher sales by format broke down to 45.1 percent print, 24.5 percent e-book, 14.5 percent instructional material, 13.7 percent downloaded audio, and 2.2 percent physical audio or a different format.

Authors

In 2018 in the U.S., there were 45,200 writers and authors.

Only 21 percent of the full-time published authors in 2018 earned all of their income from books.

The wealthiest author in the world in 2018 was James Patterson.

About a half-million self-published authors sold 240 million e-books in 2017.

Book pricing

The average price of an e-book in 2017 was $2.99 (scroll down to the slide show; see slide 52).

In traditional publishing, books written by women are listed at nearly half (45 percent) the price of those written by men.

A chart published with the study about gender bias in pricing includes the average maximum price per book category according to genders.

Popular book genres

As of 2015, mystery/thriller/crime was the most popular genre, with 47 percent of survey respondents reporting they had read books in that category that year.

In 2016, romance fiction made up 23 percent of the fiction market. In 2017, readers purchased almost 21.5 million romance books.

Figures from 2017 show that nonfiction self-help books increased the most over the previous year, by 18 percent. Craft and hobby books decreased the most, at 29 percent.

Let this data help you make informed publishing decisions.

Which of these statistics surprised you the most? Please tell us in a comment.