Tech Forum is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, but we have another big birthday to announce today — BookNet Canada is 20!

From the launch of BookNet Canada in 2002 to the debut of SalesData in 2005, BiblioShare in 2008, CataList in 2011, LibraryData in 2019, and our endless standards work on ONIX, BISAC, Thema, ISNI, and more, it’s been two action-packed and data-driven decades. Thank you for coming along for the ride!

We’re in good company for our 20th birthday this year, celebrating alongside the movies Ice Age and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, the albums Let Go by Avril Lavigne and The Eminem Show by Eminem, and thousands of books celebrating their 20th anniversary of publication.

To get the party started, we’re taking a look at those books also celebrating their 20th year with the help of SalesData, our sales tracking service for the Canadian English-language trade book market.

How are 20-year-old titles doing now?

The roaring 20s

To start us off, we found that more than 75,000 titles published in 2002 have active ISBNs in the Canadian book market from 2012 to 2022 as tracked by SalesData.

Over the last decade, the number of ISBNs published in 2002 that have sales has fluctuated considerably year-to-year, shown in the graph below.

From 2012 to 2014, the number of different titles sold dropped by 22%. It rose up 35% between 2014 and 2017, to then see a decrease of 44% from 2017 to 2019. This number recovered slightly from 2019 to 2020, up 4%, but went down the same 4% from 2020 to 2021.

Line graph of the number of ISBNs published in 2002 in the Canadian market that had sales between 2012 and 2021.

Overall, the number of different titles published in 2002 that have sales has decreased by 42% from 2012 to 2021. So far in 2022, this number is down 59% from 2021.

The sales for titles published in 2002 have trended downwards from 2012 to 2021, decreasing 62% overall.

As shown in the graph below, sales for these titles steadily decreased by 52% from 2012 to 2018. Sales suddenly rose up 9% between 2018 and 2019, only to decrease again by 27% from 2019 to 2021. So far in 2022, sales are down 62% from 2021.

Line graph of the sales of print books published in 2002 as tracked by SalesData from 2012 to 2021.

The marketshare for titles published in 2002 has also decreased 60% since 2012, from 0.9% in 2012 to 0.3% in 2021. So far in 2022, the marketshare for these titles is holding at 0.3%.

Sales for Canadian titles at 20

Canadian titles account for over 2,300 ISBNs with publication dates in 2002, which makes up 3% of all titles. Trends in sales for Canadian titles published in 2002 are similar to the above.

The number of Canadian ISBNs published in 2002 that have sales has also fluctuated considerably from 2012 to 2021. As shown in the graph below, the number of different ISBNs sold each year decreased by 26% from 2012 to 2015. It rose 15% from 2015 to 2017, to fall 31% from 2017 to 2019. After staying flat from 2019 to 2020, this number decreased again by 7% from 2020 to 2021.

Line graph of the number of ISBNs published by Canadian contributors in 2002 in the Canadian market that have sales between 2012 and 2021.

Overall, the number of different Canadian titles published in 2002 that have sales has decreased by 45% from 2012 to 2021. This number is down 60% from 2021 in 2022 so far. Consistently, an average of 7% of ISBNs published in 2002 that were active each year between 2012 to 2021 are Canadian titles. This holds true so far in 2022.

The sales of Canadian titles published in 2002 varies considerably more than all titles celebrating their 20th anniversary, shown in the graph below.

Sales for Canadian titles started to decrease 35% from 2012 to 2014, to increase by 6% between 2014 and 2015. Sales decreased again 45% from 2015 to 2018, rising 85% between 2018 and 2019. After 2019, sales have decreased again by 73%.

Line graph of the sales of Canadian print books published as tracked by SalesData from 2012 to 2021.

Looking at the entire decade, the sales for Canadian titles published in 2002 have decreased by 81%. So far in 2022, the sales of these titles are also down 81% from 2021.

In terms of all sales of titles published in 2002, on average, 11% are Canadian titles. This number has decreased 50% over the last decade, from 12% in 2012 to 6% in 2021, with significant peaks of 14% in 2015 and 16% in 2019. In 2022 so far, 7% of all titles sold that are published in 2002 are Canadian.

The marketshare for Canadian titles published in 2002 has decreased 80% since 2012, from 0.1% in 2012 to 0.02% in 2021. So far in 2022, the marketshare for these titles is holding at 0.02%.

20-year-old subjects

Books published in 2002 are still selling, but which subjects are the most popular?

Looking at the last five years, from 2017 to 2021, the most popular subject categories, on average, are:

Non-Fiction — 43% of all titles sold that were published in 2002;
Juvenile — 37% of all titles sold that were published in 2002; and
Fiction — 19% of all titles sold that were published in 2002.

On average, only 0.5% of all titles sold were Young Adult titles, while 0.6% had no subject or were non-classifiable.

Pie chart showing the distribution of sales of books published in 2002 during the last five years (2017 to 2021) among the Fiction, Non-Fiction, Juvenile, Young Adult, and No subject/non-classifiable categories.

Interestingly, while sales for each of these subjects trended predominantly downwards year over year, the sales of Juvenile titles published in 2002 actually increased 4% from 2017 to 2021. And sales of Juvenile Non-Fiction titles, specifically, increased 95% over those five years.

Similarly, while the marketshare for most subjects remains consistent from 2017 to 2021, the marketshare for Juvenile Non-Fiction titles increased from 8% in 2017 to 21% in 2021. So far in 2022, the marketshare of Juvenile Non-Fiction titles published in 2002 is at 16%.

The tops at 20

Which books celebrating their 20th year of publication have sold the most? Check out these titles published in 2002 that are still tops in terms of their sales.

(The following lists were created using data reported from Oct. 17, 2005 to March 13, 2022. We can’t use data from earlier years since the SalesData service was launched in 2005.)