Book Printers Haven’t Benefited from the #BookTok Trend Yet

The Book Industry Revenue Has Grown by 576 Million Euros Since 2017

The book industry’s revenue is mainly driven by physical books. E-books and audiobooks each make up about 4-6 percent, but both have been growing steadily since 2017. E-book sales have grown by an average of 6 percent per year since 2017, while audiobooks have grown by over 12 percent. The average annual growth in the revenue from physical books has been around 0.4 percent, amounting to an absolute growth of 202 million euros since 2017. The total revenue of the book industry has increased by approximately 576 million euros since 2017. In particular, in 2021, the book industry saw an increase of about 300 million euros, reaching 9.63 billion euros. In 2023, the industry revenue was 9.707 billion euros, with nearly 90 percent of the revenue still coming from physical books.

The Increase in Revenue in 2023 Is Primarily Driven by Two Genres

The increase in revenue in 2023 was mainly driven by books from the fiction and children’s and young adult segments, which saw sales growth of 7.7 percent (fiction) and 2.5 percent (children’s and young adult books) compared to the previous year. These two segments account for almost 55 percent of the book industry’s revenue. With the exception of the school and learning segments as well as non-fiction books, sales in all other segments have declined.

#BookTok as a Driver of the Book Industry’s Revenue Growth

#BookTok mainly covers genres like fantasy romance, coming-of-age, and young adult, which predominantly fall into the fiction and children’s and young adult segments and are particularly aimed at teenagers and young women. The fact that #BookTok has contributed to the growth of both segments is evident from these three facts:

• Over 40 percent of people aged 10-29 report that TikTok plays a significant role as a book information source. Among 10-15-year-olds, this figure is even closer to 50 percent.
• The number of books sold in connection with #BookTok is steadily increasing. At the start of the trend in 2019, the number of books purchased due to #BookTok was 250,000. By 2023, this number had risen to 12 million.
• Since April 2023, there has been an official #BookTok bestseller list, which presents the 20 top-selling titles of the month.

The expansion of the #BookTok trend into other genres, as well as the long-term opportunity to grow with the current target audience and reach older demographics, presents great potential to further amplify its impact on the book industry.

Book Printers Have Yet to Benefit from the Rising Revenue in the Book Industry

The value of goods produced for the book segment (market volume of book printing) has remained relatively constant at around 900 million euros since 2017, except for the years 2020 to 2023, which were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the increase in book industry revenue (Figure 1), book printers have not seen a corresponding rise. One reason for this is that the production costs of a book make up only about 15 percent of its retail price. Assuming that the cost structure remains consistent over time, only 15 percent of the industry’s revenue increase would be attributed to book printers. Even a small shift in the cost structure to the disadvantage of book printers can result in a stagnant market volume for book printing, even if the overall industry’s revenue increases.