Earlier in the year, we took a look at emerging subject trends in our Tech Forum session, On the rise: Book subjects on the move in the Canadian market. Now, halfway into the year, we want to give you an update on how some of those subjects have been performing. The Tech Forum session mainly looked at the sales of the trending subjects in 2024 as compared with 2023. For this blog post, we’ve compared the sales of those subjects in the first half of 2024 to their sales in the first half of 2025 using SalesData, BookNet’s national sales tracking service for the Canadian English-language trade book market.

Travel

At the end of 2024, we saw that the Asia and Special Interest BISAC categories had the biggest sales increases over 2023. They were up 30% and 26% respectively year over year. So far this year, sales in the Asia category continue to be strong (including Japan, which was the highest selling subcategory in 2024), however, sales of Special Interest titles are down 37%. Interesting to note that sales of United States travel titles are down almost 50% post-election. Overall, sales in the Travel category were flat across 2024 and 2023. In the first half of 2025, Travel sales are down 11%.

Travel / Asia — up 7%
Travel / Asia / East — up 12%
Travel / Asia / East / Japan — up 7%
Travel / Special Interest — down 37%
Travel / United States — down 47%

Romance

Sales of Romance titles were up 82% in 2024 over 2023 and the subject remains strong in the first half of this year with an overall 9% increase in sales from January to June 2025. There has been significant growth in "romantasy" books, a blend of romance and fantasy genres, and at the end of 2024, we found that the Fantasy subcategory of Romance was up 175% over 2023. This trend doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon because so far this year, the Fantasy is up 111% from January.

Sports, Workplace, and Paranormal Romance categories also saw big increases in 2024 over 2023. Sports was the only category of the three that was up in the first half of 2025, it has seen a big increase in sales so far this year (294%), the sales of the Paranormal and Workplace Romance categories have both declined.

Fiction / Romance / Fantasy — up 111%
Fiction / Romance / Sports — up 294%
Fiction / Romance / Paranormal — down 49%
Fiction / Romance / Workplace — down 33%

Health & Fitness

Overall, sales of the Health & Fitness category is down 14% so far this year. The big increases we saw in the Women's Health (up 10%) and Menopause (up 1,112%) categories from 2023 to 2024, don't seem to be carrying over into 2025. These subjects are down compared to this time last year.

Non-Fiction / Health & Fitness / Women's Health — down 45%

Non-Fiction / Health & Fitness / Menopause — down 11%

Comics & Graphic Novels

Since 2020 there has been a steady increase in sales for Comics & Graphic Novel titles, particularly with Adult titles. However, 2023 was the first year that we started to see declines in the category. Sales of Adult Comics & Graphic Novels were down 9% in 2024, but in the first half of 2025, sales are up 3%. We saw small increases in 2024 over 2023 in the Juvenile subcategory, but a decrease in Young Adult (YA) Comics. This year, there have been decreases in both the Juvenile and YA Comics & Graphic Novels subcategories.

Juvenile / Juvenile Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels — down 2%

Young Adult / Young Adult Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels — down 36%

Horror

Fiction / Horror has seen steady growth since 2020, and it was up 16% in 2024 over 2023. Sales of the subject continue to grow in 2025, up 17%. The 2024 BISAC codes included some new Horror subcategories that we’ve been keeping an eye on. So far this year, we’ve seen a rise in sales of Occult & Supernatural, Slasher, and Collections & Anthologies Horror titles but a decline in Cosmic & Eldritch and Psychological Horror titles.

Fiction / Horror / Occult & Supernatural — up 94%
Fiction / Horror / Slasher — up 24%
Fiction / Horror / Collections & Anthologies — up 18%
Fiction / Horror / Cosmic & Eldritch — down 79%
Fiction / Horror / Psychological — down 58%

For more information on the subjects above and even more trending subjects to keep an eye on, watch the full Tech Forum session below. And if you want to look ahead, register for our upcoming Tech Forum session, Ready, set, go: Pre-fall sales trends and data-driven insights, exploring mid-year market data including sales trends from January through summer, year-over-year comparisons from past peak periods, and more!