A total of 52 million books were sold in Canada in 2014 according to BookNet Canada, the keeper of the data. Of those, 55 per cent were paperbacks, 25 percent were hardcover, 17 percent were e-books and the other three percent were audio books or other.
“Our sales have been up 20 per cent from last year for the last three months straight,” said Caitlin Jesson, the manager of The Book Warehouse on West Broadway in Vancouver.
And Jesson says sales are up eight per cent overall at the parent company, Black Bond Books. It has 10 stores in and around Metro Vancouver.
Canada’s largest book seller, Indigo, also says physical book sales are growing but wouldn’t say by how much, while e-book sales have declined.
And the trend is not just happening in Canada. The largest book retailer in the U.K. says sales of Kindles have disappeared while physical book sales are up five per cent.
Why is this happening?
“I just don’t get the same satisfaction out of reading as I do when I have a real book in my hands,” says reader Lisa Hahn.
What are Canadians reading?
Crime and thriller fiction tops the list followed by fantasy-science fiction, general fiction, cookbooks and historical fiction, according to BookNet Canada.
In Canada, shopping in person is still the most popular way to buy a book. The average buyer, according to BookNet Canada, is a college educated woman, over 45 who works fulltime and lives in an urban area.
Ironically, sales of paper books are also up online.
