News 20 Dec 2018

China and the United States produce one-half of book titles in the whole world

According to the statistics of the International Publishers Association (IPA), China and the United States produce almost one-half of all book titles published in the world annually. In absolute numbers, most books are produced in China, around half a million titles in 2016. The United States produced 339,000 titles in 2015.

Great Britain, Russia and France also produce more than 100,000 titles annually. The number of published titles per year has increased in China by more than 35 per cent from 2011. In Great Britain the growth has been good 15 per cent and in France over 27 per cent. In the United States the increase was good three per cent from 2010 to 2015. In Russia the number has decreased by more than eight per cent in five years, in Finland by around ten per cent.

Small developed countries hold the top position in book production relative to the population

Relative to the population, most books are by far produced in Iceland, around 4.5 titles per 1,000 inhabitants in 2015. Denmark and Estonia also reach three titles, whereas the number of titles in China, which produces most in absolute numbers, is under half a title per 1,000 inhabitants.

In international comparison, Finland ranks in the middle with around two titles.

More non-fiction than fiction produced all over the world

In all countries included in the comparison, the number of produced non-fiction titles is clearly higher than that of fiction. The book production is most dominated by non-fiction in China, where almost 90 per cent of the titles were non-fiction in 2016. The share of non-fiction books was also over 80 per cent in Japan and Germany.

In Iceland the book production is most dominated by fiction, almost 40 per cent of the titles in 2015. In Finland almost 32 per cent of the titles were fiction books in 2017.

Cultural Statistics table service updated

New updates have been added to Statistics Finland's cultural statistics table service. The tables of the table service are updated four times per year and analysing articles are published in connection with the tables. The tables are in Finnish and English, and the articles are in Finnish.

Cultural Statistics table service

Table 14.9. Book production in certain countries

Cultural statistics home page

Further information: Jukka Ekholm +358 29 551 3370, Kaisa Weckström +358 29 551 2348, firstname.lastname@stat.fi