Canadian Book Consumer
Results from our surveying of Canadian book buyers. In these reports you’ll find the most popular formats and subjects, insights on why and how Canadians acquire books, the reasons why Canadians decide to read, buy, or borrow specific books, and data comparing and contrasting buyers and borrowers.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2025
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2025.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2024
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2024.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2023
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2023.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2022
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2022.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2021
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2021.
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Canadian Book Consumer Study 2020
This report compiles the results from our quarterly surveying of Canadians about their book buying and reading habits in 2020.
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The Canadian Book Buyer 2018
This report updates previous consumer studies with the demographics, purchasing behaviour, format preferences, and subjects purchased by Canadian book buyers.
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How Canadians Buy Books 2015
For this consumer report, we asked Canadians in late 2015 to tell us all about their book purchases, from awareness to decision to action.
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The Canadian Book Buyer 2015
For this free consumer report, we surveyed book buyers in early 2015 about their book-buying habits and preferences.
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Coast to Coast: Book Buyers Across Canada
This free report explores how Canadian book buyers’ habits differ by region.
Research blog posts
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Tell us about the state of Canadian publishing?
Take this survey to help us tell you how Canadian publishing has changed since the last time we released our report.
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How have Canadian readers been celebrating Pride Month in 2026?
It’s Pride Season across Canada and we wanted to look at how titles categorized under LGBTQ+ BISAC codes have been selling.
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Canada Day 2026: How have Canadian titles been performing over the last five years?
Sneak a peek at buying and borrowing numbers for Canadian titles to see how that has evolved over the last five years.
Looking for more?
Custom research reports
We can produce custom research reports to suit your needs. Need to measure the sales impact of a marketing campaign or literary award? Want to better understand the buying habits of Romance readers in Western Canada? Get in touch to learn how we can provide the insights you need using data from our tracking tools, SalesData & LibraryData, and our consumer and leisure surveys.
Research for subscribers
SalesData & LibraryData subscribers can access exclusive reports on the impact of awards, perennial bestsellers, backlist trends, market performance, year-over-year analysis, and more. These reports contain confidential information and are restricted to registered users of SalesData & LibraryData. You can find the password to the portal on the salesdata.ca or librarydata.ca home pages. Log in here.
Literary awards
Literary prizes have a significant importance in the Canadian book industry, which means we pay close attention to how nominations and wins impact sales. SalesData & LibraryData subscribers can access our annual reports on the sales impact of major literary prizes in the Research Portal. If you organize a book prize and would like to track its impact on sales, get in touch to discuss custom research possibilities.
Use SalesData & LibraryData to create your own reports. See how our data analytics products can help you.
Where does our research come from?
SalesData & LibraryData: SalesData collects weekly point-of-sales data from over 2,000 retail outlets across Canada, covering an estimated 85% of the Canadian trade print book market. LibraryData collects weekly circulation data from over 80 public libraries across Canada representing approximately 25% of the Canadian English-language population.
Online surveys: We regularly survey Canadians who read, buy, borrow, and listen to books to shed light on consumer behaviour and trends. We use this data in everything from blog posts and studies to custom reports and presentations. We also conduct industry surveys to get a picture of the Canadian English-language book market.
All reports copyright © BookNet Canada (ISNI: 0000000107013646), subject to individual terms