The fall weather has taken over which means it’s time for many of us to start preparing for the end-of-the-year festivities. For many industries, including publishing, this is the time of the year when sales ramp up, long-awaited titles release, and buyers are even more eager to get their hands on books, for themselves and to give as gifts.
Throughout the years we’ve shared tips, tricks, and trends to keep in mind while preparing for the holiday shopping season, including last year’s insights into the books Canadians buy for the holidays, featuring data from 2016 to 2020. For this blog post, and with the help of SalesData, we’re going to focus on book sales from 2020 and 2021 — what subjects were popular during the pandemic holiday shopping season? Are Canadians buying books for themselves, as gifts, or both? What subjects sold more during the 2021 holiday season? We tell you all about it below!
Gifting books
If you’re already thinking about what to give to your friends, family, or colleagues as gifts during the holidays, books have likely crossed your mind. And you’re not alone. Based on data collected for our Canadian Book Consumer Study, we learned that in 2021, an average of 17% of respondents bought a book for someone else as a gift, with that percentage jumping up in the last quarter of the year to 25% of respondents.
Interestingly, most books that were purchased as gifts in 2021 were for adults aged 18 or over (40%), followed by middle grade children, aged 8 to 12, at 20%, and for young children, aged 4 to 7, at 19%. And as expected — since some physical stores were still closed due to the pandemic — most purchases were made online (60%).
Number of books purchased as gifts by Canadian book buyers in April, June, September, and December 2021
What subjects and subcategories were most popular amongst book buyers in 2021? Let’s take a look:
66% of the books purchased as gifts were Fiction books
34% were Non-Fiction books
The subcategories that were most popular among Fiction book buyers were:
Fiction / General at 21%;
Fiction / Fantasy at 21% ; and
Fiction / Comics and Graphic Novels at 11%.
The subcategories that were most popular among Non-Fiction book buyers were:
Non-Fiction / Biography & Memoir at 19%;
Non-Fiction / History at 12%; and
Non-Fiction / Self-Help at 12%.
The holiday market in 2020 and 2021
Similar to what we’ve seen since 2016, the average sales of books across all categories increased by 53% during the holiday season. The Juvenile category saw the most significant increase in sales at 65%, followed by Non-Fiction at 61%; Young Adult titles were next with an increase of 48%, and Fiction was last with an increase of 38%.
Average sales by category from 2020 to 2021
To paint a more complete picture, let’s take look at the marketshare — the percentage of market that the category occupies — of the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, and Young Adult subject categories in 2020 and 2021, and find out which subjects saw an increase in demand during the holidays.
Average marketshare by category from 2020 to 2021
The marketshare of Juvenile titles is pretty similar throughout the year, except for a small increase during the fourth quarter — 39% versus 36% during the third quarter and 37% during the first and second quarters. For Non-Fiction titles, the fourth quarter is also a period of growth with an average marketshare of 35% compared to 34% during the first quarter and 31% during the second and third quarters. Fiction on the other hand saw a decrease in marketshare during the holidays going from 24% in the first quarter, 27% in the second quarter, and 28% in the third quarter to 21% in the fourth quarter. Young Adult titles had a marketshare of 4% during the first and fourth quarters and 5% during the second and third quarters.
The books Canadians bought
What types of books did Canadians buy more of in 2021 when compared with 2020? During the 2021 holiday season, Canadians were actively buying Young Adult books — the sales for this subject increased by 43%. The sales of Fiction books also saw an increase of 5%. Non-Fiction books on the other hand saw a decrease in sales of 2%, and Juvenile titles sales decreased by 4%.
Zooming in, these are the subcategories Canadians bought more of during the holidays in 2021 compared to 2020:
For the Fiction category:
Fiction / Political — 1,317% year-over-year increase in sales
Fiction / Sports — 989% year-over-year increase in sales
Fiction / Legal — 753% year-over-year increase in sales
For the Non-Fiction category:
Non-Fiction / Psychology — 89% year-over-year increase in sales
Non-Fiction / Music — 87% year-over-year increase in sales
Non-Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels — 61% year-over-year increase in sales
For the Juvenile category:
Juvenile Fiction / Spies & Spying — 44,650% year-over-year increase in sales
Juvenile Nonfiction / Spies & Spying — 11,200% year-over-year increase in sales
Juvenile Nonfiction / Bedtime & Dreams — 1,889% year-over-year increase in sales
For the Young Adult category:
Young Adult Nonfiction / Games & Activities —16,950% year-over-year increase in sales
Young Adult Nonfiction / Art — 5,200% year-over-year increase in sales
Young Adult Nonfiction / Mathematics — 4,594% year-over-year increase in sales
Trends and “hot” titles come and go, but there are some books and subjects that stay popular throughout the years. These are the subcategories that saw significant growth in sales during both holiday seasons in 2020 and 2021:
For the Fiction category:
Fiction / Holidays — 2,734% average increase in sales
Fiction / Multiple Timelines — 471% average increase in sales
Fiction / Political — 455% average increase in sales
For the Non-Fiction category:
Non-Fiction / Performing Arts — 414% average increase in sales
Non-Fiction / Photography — 335% average increase in sales
Non-Fiction / Humor — 265% average increase in sales
For the Juvenile category:
Juvenile Nonfiction / Bedtime & Dreams — 875% average increase in sales
Juvenile Nonfiction / House & Home — 575% average increase in sales
Juvenile Fiction / Holidays & Celebrations — 528% average increase in sales
For the Young Adult category:
Young Adult Nonfiction / Games & Activities — 10,190% average increase in sales
Young Adult Nonfiction / Study Aids — 2,000% average increase in sales
Young Adult Nonfiction / Humor — 1,508% average increase in sales
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Happy holidays!
Sales and library circulation data of Cooking titles during the first quarter of 2024.