Ebooks are an integral part of the Canadian book market. Nearly 20% of all books purchased by Canadians in 2022 were ebooks, according to the Canadian Book Consumer Study 2022. At the same time, almost 70% of Canadians reported reading an ebook in 2022 in the Canadian Leisure & Reading Study 2022..
Our new, free study, Tapping into Ebooks: Ebook Use in Canada 2022 , benchmarks ebook use in Canada, and reveals the buying, borrowing, and reading habits of Canadian ebook consumers. It also tracks the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on ebook use, by comparing data from 2022 with past years.
Highlights from the study
36% of Canadian book buyers purchased ebooks in 2022, at an average price of $12.62 per ebook.
Overall, 17% of all book purchases were ebooks in 2022.
27% of Canadian book borrowers borrowed ebooks in 2022, with the number of Canadian ebook checkouts increasing 32% from 2019 to 2022 according to OverDrive.
16% of all Canadian readers preferred ebooks in 2022 and almost half of ebook readers agreed or sometimes agreed that they would not read a book in another format, if an ebook was not available.
Most Canadian ebook readers read ebooks on either a smartphone (34%) or tablet (32%) in 2022.
Canadian ebook readers use a variety of ebook features while reading, including night display (72%), table of contents (72%), and zoom (71%).
Canadian ebook consumers buy, borrow, and read diversely.
In this podcast episode, we talk to Cassie Smyth about AI integration into audiobooks, accessible audiobooks, supporting the Canadian audiobook ecosystem, and more.