It’s Pride Season across Canada and while we’re in the midst of it, we wanted to look at how titles categorized using LGBTQ+ BISAC codes have been selling. In this post, we take a quick look at how these titles have been performing during June of this year, how the performance of these categories have changed in comparison to last year, and the five top selling books in this category during June 2026, pride month!
To do this, we looked at sales data for the following categories:
Fiction / LGBTQ+
Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+
Fiction / Erotica / LGBTQ+
Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / LGBTQ+
Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+
Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+
Young Adult / Young Adult Nonfiction / LGBTQ+
Juvenile / Juvenile Fiction / LGBTQ+
Juvenile / Juvenile Nonfiction / LGBTQ+
Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+
Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies
Categories that have experienced growth from last year
The next question we asked was, which of these categories grew the most over the last year? What were Canadian readers feeling more inclined to buy? The following table lists the categories that grew by a noteworthy percentage when we compare sales from June 2025 and June 2026 across Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, Young Adult, and Comics & Graphic Novels.
| Subcategory | Percent change from June 2025 to June 2026 |
|---|---|
| Fiction | |
| Fiction / LGBTQ+ / Lesbian | 142% |
| Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ / Gay | 118% |
| Fiction / LGBTQ+ / General | 97% |
| Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ | 96% |
| Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ / Bisexual | 87% |
| Non-Fiction | |
| Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / Transgender Studies | 46% |
| Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / General | 35% |
| Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies | 34% |
| Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies / Gay Studies | 23% |
| Juvenile | |
| Juvenile / Juvenile Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+ | 7% |
| Juvenile / Juvenile Nonfiction / LGBTQ+ | 5% |
| Juvenile / Juvenile Nonfiction / LGBTQ+ / General | 4% |
| Young Adult | |
| Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ | 9% |
| Comics & Graphics Novels | |
| Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+ / Lesbian | 14,000% |
| Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+ / Gay | 120% |
Top performing subcategories
Next, we wanted to see how the top performing subcategory per genre had performed in the second quarters of 2025 and 2026. This included April and May, the two months leading up to pride month, and June, pride month itself!
Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+
As shown in the graph below, year-over-year sales of Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ titles were up by 314% in April, 80% in May, and 96% in June.
In 2025, sales increased by 34% from April to May, and decreased in June by 12%.
In 2026, sales of Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ titles were down 42% from April to May. The downward trend continued with a 5% decrease from May to June.
Overall, the sales increased by 17% in the second quarter of 2025 and decreased by 44% in the second quarter of 2026.
Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies
Year-over-year sales of Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies titles were down by 4% in April before they went up by 5% in May and 34% in June.
In 2025, sales increased by 38% from April to May, and decreased from May to June by 23%.
While in 2026, sales of Non-Fiction / Social Science / LGBTQ+ Studies titles were up by 52% from April to May before they dropped by 2% from May to June.
Overall, the sales increased by 7% and 49% in the second quarters of 2025 and 2026, respectively.
Young Adult Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+
For Young Adult Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ titles, year-over-year sales were up by 1% in April, down by 27% in May, and went back up by 9% in June.
In 2025, sales for these titles increased by 106% from April to May, and decreased in June by 17%.
On the other hand, in 2026, sales of Young Adult Fiction / Romance / LGBTQ+ titles were up 48% from April to May. This upward trend continued with a 24% increase from May to June.
Overall, the sales increased by 71% and 84% in the second quarters of 2025 and 2026, respectively.
Juvenile Fiction / LGBTQ+
Year-over-year sales of Juvenile Fiction / LGBTQ+ titles were down by 46% in April, 66% in May, and 34% in June.
In 2025, sales increased by 64% from April to May, and decreased in June by 34%.
In 2026, sales of Juvenile Fiction / LGBTQ+ titles were up 3% from April to May and 28% from May to June.
Overall, the sales increased by 8% and decreased by 31% in the second quarters of 2025 and 2026, respectively.
Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+
For Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+ titles, year-over-year sales were down by 24% in April, 35% in May, and up by 1% in June.
In 2025, sales increased by 24% from April to May but decreased by 17% in June.
Whereas, in 2026, sales of Comics & Graphic Novels / LGBTQ+ titles were up 6% from April to May before it continuing to grow by 28% from May to June.
Overall, the sales increased by 2% and 36% in the second quarters of 2025 and 2026, respectively.
Top selling titles
Heated Rivalry by Rachel Reid 🍁
The Long Game by Rachel Reid 🍁
The Cure for Drowning by Loghan Paylor 🍁
Game Changer by Rachel Reid 🍁
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
Want to learn more about what Canadians are buying and reading? Sign up to our eNews to get our blog posts delivered straight to to your inbox. For more in-depth reports and studies on the Canadian publishing industry, visit our research page to look at our most recent reports or sign up for our research newsletter to be the first to know about our upcoming research studies.
Until next time!
Take this survey to help us tell you how Canadian publishing has changed since the last time we released our report.