Canadian print book sales climbed to C$1.15 billion (approximately $821 million) in 2025, according to a recent report by BookNet Canada. This represents a gain of 4.1% over 2024, when retail sales tracked by BNC SalesData fell 1.9% to approximately C$1.1 billion ($789 million).
The recovery was driven in part by gains in domestic publishing, with books by Canadian authors accounting for 14% of unit print sales in 2025, up from 12% in both 2024 and 2023. Widespread anti-American sentiment and marketing campaigns urging consumers to "buy Canadian," prompted by President Trump's threats to annex Canada, contributed to the sales momentum.
The figures come from BookNet Canada's annual report, which draws on consumer data from its Canadian Book Consumer survey panel, English-language trade sales data from BNC SalesData, and French-language trade data from the Société de gestion de la Banque de titres de langue française.
In 2025, nearly 48 million physical books were sold across 883,932 unique ISBNs, a figure that is roughly flat with the just under 48 million units sold the prior year. The report does not include data on e-book or audiobook sales.
Children's and young adult titles continued to dominate the market, accounting for 39% of total market share; for the eighth consecutive year, two out of every five print books sold in Canada fell into the children's or YA categories. Nonfiction followed at 30%, with fiction at 29%.
The top-selling English-language print title in Canada in 2025 was The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, which also topped the nonfiction category. The second-best-selling nonfiction title in 2025 was Every Salad Ever by Greta Podleski, self-published by her own company, One Spoon Media, which also ranked as the top-selling book by both a Canadian author and a Canadian-owned publisher.
In fiction, Rebecca Yarros's Onyx Storm took the top spot, followed by Freida McFadden's The Housemaid. McFadden's dominance in the thriller category was notable, claiming more than half of the titles on the top 10 paperback lists in the fiction/thriller category. (In 2024, Sarah J. Maas similarly accounted for half the spots on both the hardcover and paperback fantasy bestseller lists.)
On the children's and YA side, Dav Pilkey topped the category for the sixth consecutive year, this time withBig Jim Believes (Dog Man #14), following his 2024 win with The Scarlet Shedder (Dog Man #12). The top YA title was Suzanne Collins's Sunrise on the Reaping.
The French-Canadian market mirrored Anglophone Canada's broad patterns, with juvenile and YA representing 44% of the trade market. The best-selling title in that segment was the latest Astérix comic, Astérix en Lusitanie, written by Fabcaro and illustrated by Didier Conrad.
