John Dean – Crime Writer

As people who read my blogs may be aware, I am optimistic about the future of publishing, an optimism driven in a large part by the rapid growth of ebooks and audiobooks, online sales, the performance of bookshops small and independent or in a high street chain, and  ever more proficient software which allows self-publishers to produce quality products.

Now a report by the Business Research Company has struck an equally optimistic note in its latest summary of the state of the global industry. It says that the fiction books market reached $11.07 billion in 2025 and is expected to grow to $12.4 billion in 2030 at an annual growth rate of 2.4%.

The growth, it says, can be attributed to factors including the adaptation of stories into multi-formats such as e-books and audiobooks, and the expansion of digital platforms offering subscription-based reading models (such as Kindle Unlimited).

The company says that work by the Association of American Publishers, a US-based trade association, in August 2024 underlined the importance of digital formats, which accounted for 16 % of all publishing revenue in 2023, reflecting a 6.3 % increase compared to 2022, with increasing sales of online retail continuing as the primary sales channel in the years that have followed.

Now, personally, I prefer hardcopy books, something which can sit on a shelf, but if more readers are consuming my books online then that is where publishers like mine (the innovative Joffe Books) must focus a lot of their attention – and rising online book sales will continue to drive the growth of the fiction books industry, says the Business Research Company.

It’s heavyweight research and this is only a snapshot. If you want to find out more, or buy the report, you can go to https://www.thebusinessresearchcompany.com/

My feature explaining in depth why I am so optimistic can be found in the Features Section of this website. To give you a flavour of the piece, it begins by asserting: “You will hear some writers, both published and non-published, coming up with gloomy prognostications about the book trade but I beg to differ. These are exciting times, boom times even, it’s just that with boom times come increased competition. Publishers have so much talent to choose from, it can sometimes feel dispiriting if you are awaiting your big breakthrough. The truly remarkable transformation in recent years has been driven primarily by technological innovation that is changing customer behaviour and global sales trends. The traditional model, where print books were the primary focus for publishers and the emerging idea of digital ebooks were given a lower priority, has been turned on its head in many sectors with publishers selling many more digital books than hardcopies.”