Consistent digital growth to a new level of digital book consumption, led by growth audiobooks and in new ’access’ driven distribution models across markets as diverse as Germany, Italy, Spain, Hispanic America, Brazil and Canada!

The Digital Consumer Book Barometer provides detailed insights and analysis based on solid and exclusive market data from digital distributors, as guidance for digital book marketing.

The big question was: “Is digital growth, as observed under the pandemic, here to stay?” Two years on, the answer is clear and positive. This is the core learning from the new Digital Consumer Book Barometer 2022, a thorough analysis based on sales data across different markets, various digital formats like ebooks and audiobooks, with comparisons between diverse genre categories, from fiction and nonfiction to children and young adult reading, romance, fantasy, and also education.

Findings include notably the following trends:

• Audiobooks spearhead the expansion, fueled notably by ‘access’ driven distribution and business models, such as subscription, streaming and lending from public libraries;
• As digital catalogues have expanded, children books and young adult reading found new audiences, but also other genre categories (such as nonfiction and educational, which include self-help, self-improvement, spirituality);
• Download sales for both ebooks and audiobooks continue to have a mainstream following in German language markets, while subscription and streaming are increasingly replacing downloads in Hispanic markets and in Brazil;
• Average price levels went significantly up across all territories, with the sole exception of Brazil;
• An increasing share of pre-orders for newly released titles indicate more targeted marketing approaches by publishers.

The Digital Consumer Book Barometer provides a granular and efficient toolset for understanding all these complexities and shifting patterns, segment by segment and territory by territory.

The Digital Barometer has been created by Ruediger Wischenbart Content and Consulting and is updated regularly since 2018.

The current #June2022 edition, available for download at www.wischenbart.com/barometer, and has been supported by sponsors, notably Bookwire, De Marque, and IPDA.

Contact: office@wischenbart.com

Vienna, in June 2022