BookNet turned 20 this year and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we thought we’d bring you a list of the print books that have sold the most in the Canadian market since our SalesData tool started tracking.
So cast your mind back, if you can, to October 17, 2005. The week the first sales started trickling in to SalesData — which collects weekly point-of-sales data from roughly 85% of the Canadian trade print book market.
Further orient yourself in time by taking a look at the top five books that sold in Canada that week (Oct. 17-23, 2005):
A Series of Unfortunate Events #12: the Penultimate Peril by Lemony Snicket, illus. by Brett Helquist and Michael Kupperman
London Bridges by James Patterson
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan
Guinness World Records 2006 by the Guinness World Records Editors
It’s been a long journey since then. The first version of SalesData was replaced by version two in 2009 and version three came along in 2015. And throughout, we’ve steadily improved our features, reports, and data insights to better serve the book industry.
Now that we’ve tooted our own horn, let’s get right to the data you’ve come for: the top 10 lists and then a breakdown of some of the notable stats from the top 100 titles.
Top 10 Fiction titles
Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Fifty Shades Darker by E. L. James
Fifty Shades Freed by E. L. James
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill 🍁
The Shack by William P. Young
Top 10 Non-Fiction titles
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Becoming by Michelle Obama
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
Educated by Tara Westover
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Top 10 Juvenile & Young Adult titles
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch,🍁 illus. by Sheila McGraw
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Oh, the Places You'll Go! by Dr. Seuss
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two (Special Rehearsal Edition Script) by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany
Goodnight Moon Board Book by Margaret Wise Brown, illus. by Clement Hurd
Top 10 titles by Canadian contributors
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch,🍁 illus. by Sheila McGraw
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill 🍁
12 Rules for Life by Jordan B. Peterson 🍁
Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda 🍁
The Oh She Glows Cookbook by Angela Liddon 🍁
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield 🍁
Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur 🍁
The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch,🍁 illus. by Michael Martchenko 🍁
The Looneyspoons Collection by Janet Podleski🍁 and Greta Podleski 🍁
Yum and Yummer by Greta Podleski 🍁
Notable facts from the top 100
We pulled the top 100 print book ISBNs that have sold in the Canadian trade market since SalesData launched (October 17, 2005). Here are some notable stats for the list.
If we look at the years that these ISBNs were published, 2010 was the most popular with 12 of the top 100 published that year. 2012 and 2007 were the next most popular with 9 titles for each year.
The oldest book in the top 100 was from 1957 — Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (9780394800790).
The most recent book in the top 100 was 2020’s A Promised Land by Barak Obama (9781524763169).
In terms of price, the most common price point was $16.95 — seven books in the top 100 were listed at that price point. The average price was $22.92 which was close to the median price, $22.97.
The category breakdown for the top 100 titles shook out this way:
31 of the top 100 were Non-Fiction titles
28 were Juvenile Fiction titles
27 were Fiction
11 were Young Adult Fiction
2 were Poetry
1 was Juvenile Non-Fiction
The most popular subjects within the categories were Biography & Autobiography, Fiction / General, and Juvenile Fiction / Humorous Stories all three of which had 10 of the 100 top titles each
The authors who showed up on the list the most were:
Jeff Kinney who wrote 7 titles on the list;
Stephanie Meyer penned 5; and
with 4 titles each: E. L. James and Suzanne Collins.
Canadian contributors made up 14 titles on the list.
Want to stay on top of our latest research? Sign up to get our monthly newsletter.
Find out what titles made it to the November 2024 Loan Stars Adult Canadian list.