Industry Insights
Every few years, the publishing industry braces for the death of the physical book. And every few years, physical books refuse to die. In 2026, the data tells a story that surprises almost everyone who assumed the opposite.
The narrative has been consistent for fifteen years. Ebooks arrived and were going to replace print. Then streaming was going to replace everything. Then social media, short-form content, and shrinking attention spans were going to end long-form reading altogether. And yet — bookshops are opening, not closing. Physical book sales have held remarkably steady. And the authors, publishers, and booksellers who quietly kept believing in print have been proven right, year after year.
This is not nostalgia talking. The data on physical book sales is genuinely surprising — and it has direct, practical implications for every author deciding which formats to publish in, and how seriously to take print as part of their publishing strategy.
65%
of book sales by revenue are still physical print — in an era when every other entertainment medium has shifted decisively to digital
What the data actually shows
Print book sales in the UK and US have remained remarkably stable throughout a period when every prediction suggested they would collapse. The Publishers Association reported that physical book sales in the UK generated over £3 billion in 2024 — broadly consistent with pre-pandemic figures, and substantially ahead of what analysts were predicting in 2012 when ebook growth first accelerated.
Ebooks settled at a market share of roughly 20–25% and have not grown significantly beyond that for several years. Audiobooks have grown strongly — now representing approximately 10–12% of the market — but this growth has come largely from new listening occasions rather than cannibalising print reading. The three formats have found something close to equilibrium, with print firmly dominant.
£3bn+
physical book sales revenue in the UK in 2024 — broadly stable for a decade
18–34
age group most likely to prefer physical books — contrary to almost every assumption
1,000+
independent bookshops operating in the UK in 2025 — up from a low of around 800 a decade ago
Why print has refused to die — five reasons that hold up under scrutiny
01
The screen fatigue effect
In a world where the average person spends eight or more hours per day looking at screens — for work, social media, entertainment, and communication — a physical book offers something genuinely different. It is the only major entertainment medium that does not involve a screen. For an increasingly screen-saturated population, that is not a limitation. It is a feature. Readers who want to decompress, focus, and be genuinely absorbed in something are actively choosing print as a form of relief from digital life.
02
The ownership and object experience
A physical book is an object you own — permanently, unconditionally, without subscription, without a platform deciding it is no longer available. You can lend it, display it, annotate it, and pass it on. The experience of reading a well-designed physical book — the weight, the typography, the texture of the paper — is an intentional sensory experience that ebook reading does not replicate. Readers who care about books as objects have not been persuaded to give that up, and the evidence suggests they will not be.
03
BookTok and the social life of physical books
One of the most unexpected drivers of physical book sales in recent years has been social media — particularly TikTok’s book community, known as BookTok, which has driven millions of sales for titles that would never have reached those readers through traditional marketing channels. The striking visual of a physical book — its cover, its spine on a shelf, an annotated page — is inherently more shareable and more emotionally resonant than a screenshot of an ebook. Social media has become a powerful promotional force for print, not a threat to it.
04
The credibility signal of a physical book
For non-fiction authors especially, a physical book carries a credibility signal that a digital-only publication does not. The ability to place a book on a desk in a client meeting, hand a copy to a potential speaking client, or see it on a shelf in a professional’s office — these are real and commercially valuable outcomes. Many business authors report that the physical book is the most effective business card they have ever had. An ebook does not have the same physical presence or the same immediate impression of authority.
05
Young readers are choosing print
Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding in recent publishing data is that 18-to-34-year-olds — the generation who grew up with smartphones and streaming — are among the strongest supporters of physical books. Research consistently shows this age group prefers print for reading in a way that defies every assumption about digital natives. The reasons are varied — screen fatigue, intentionality, aesthetic appreciation, the desire for a distraction-free reading experience — but the finding is robust and has been replicated across multiple studies.
How it varies by genre and category
The print vs digital split is not uniform across all types of books. Understanding where print dominates and where digital leads has direct practical implications for authors deciding which formats to prioritise.
Literary & general fiction
Print strongly dominant
Readers of literary fiction overwhelmingly prefer print. The reading experience — slow, immersive, annotation-friendly — suits physical books, and the design and cover of a literary novel is a meaningful part of the object’s appeal.
Children’s & YA
Print overwhelmingly dominant
Children’s books — picture books especially — are almost entirely a physical format. The tactile experience, the illustrations, and the ritual of reading a physical book to or with a child are irreplaceable in ways that no digital format has come close to matching.
Business & non-fiction
Print leads, ebook growing
Business books sell strongly in print — particularly for gifting, professional contexts, and the credibility signal of a physical copy in a professional setting. Ebook versions sell well to readers who want to highlight and search digitally. Both formats matter.
Genre fiction (romance, thriller)
Most balanced split
High-volume genre fiction readers — particularly romance — are the most format-agnostic category in publishing. Many read across print, ebook, and audio depending on context. Both formats are commercially important for authors in these categories.
Self-help & personal development
Print preferred for engagement
Readers of self-help and personal development books are more likely to annotate, return to, and physically interact with their books — behaviours that strongly favour print. Workbook elements and exercises cement the preference further.
Academic & reference
Digital growing, print persists
Academic publishing has shifted more significantly toward digital than most other categories — but physical reference books retain strong sales among readers who prefer not to depend on platform access or internet connectivity for critical reference material.
What this means for authors making format decisions
The data carries clear and practical implications for authors deciding whether to invest in a print edition, an ebook, or both. The short version: both formats serve different readers and different occasions, and the authors who publish in multiple formats consistently outperform those who publish in only one.
“An author who publishes in print only is invisible to a significant audience of ebook readers. An author who publishes in ebook only is invisible to every reader who wants a physical copy, misses every gifting occasion, and forgoes the credibility signal that a physical book provides. The commercially rational choice is almost always both.”
Publish in print and ebook simultaneously — the two formats serve different reading occasions and attract different reader types, and there is no commercial reason to choose one over the other
For business authors and thought leaders, a physical book is a professional tool with uses that go far beyond bookshop sales — it belongs in meetings, on shelves, and in the hands of clients and collaborators
For fiction authors, the print edition anchors the book’s identity and cover design — and is what readers photograph, share, and gift, which drives organic word-of-mouth in ways that ebooks cannot replicate
Audiobooks represent a growing third format worth considering for any author whose content is well suited to being listened to — they reach readers in contexts where reading is impossible, expanding your audience rather than cannibalising it
The physical book is a long-term asset — it remains in print indefinitely at no additional cost under print-on-demand distribution, and continues generating sales and credibility years after its publication date
The verdict
Does anyone still read physical books? Emphatically yes — and the evidence suggests they will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. The death of print has been predicted so many times, by so many confident voices, that the prediction itself has become a cliché. The physical book has outlasted every technology that was supposed to replace it.
This does not mean ebooks and audiobooks do not matter — they do, and authors who ignore them leave real audiences and real revenue unreached. But it does mean that the question is not “print or digital?” It is “how do you reach your readers across every format in which they want to find you?”
The answer, for most authors in 2026, is both — produced professionally, distributed widely, and treated as the complementary formats they have always been.
At Britannia Publishing House, every book we publish is produced for multiple formats — print and ebook as standard, with audiobook production available for authors who want it. We handle the technical requirements of each format so that your book reaches every reader who wants it, however they want to read it.
