The global book market shows robust health in 2026. According to Nielsen BookScan data, print book sales grew by 4.2% in 2025, reaching 890 million copies in the five major markets (United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan). Digital has not killed print; it has complemented it. Audiobooks, driven by Audible and Spotify, now represent 18% of publishing revenue, up from 6% in 2019. Reading has never been as diverse in its formats, nor as concentrated in its successes.
Climate fiction – 'cli-fi' – has established itself as the dominant literary genre of the year. Canadian author Kim Stanley Robinson's novel 'The Last Glacier,' published in January 2026, sold 4.8 million copies in three months – a record for a science fiction book. In France, 'Les Enfants de l'eau' by Léa Salamé (Gallimard publishers) explores a submerged Paris in 2080; the book spent twelve weeks at the top of the GFK charts. These works are no longer pure science fiction: they integrate real climate data and IPCC projections, blurring the line between fiction and foresight.
Artificial intelligence has burst onto the publishing scene – not as a writing tool, but as a subject. Three-time Hugo Award winner N.K. Jemisin's novel 'Sentience' recounts the emergence of consciousness in a language model and has sparked a philosophical debate in the international press. More controversially, 'Machine Dreams' by Briton Ian McEwan explores romantic relationships between humans and AI with a psychological acuity that convinced the Booker Prize jury to include it on its longlist. The AI novel has become what the internet novel was in the 2000s: a distorted mirror of our anxieties.
The BookTok phenomenon continues to shake up the industry. In 2026, recommendations on TikTok generate 32% of book sales among 18-34 year olds, according to a study by the Association of American Publishers. The algorithm has propelled unknown authors to the top of the charts: Colombian novelist Valentina Rojas, whose debut book 'Mariposas de ceniza' was self-published, sold 2.1 million copies after a 47-second TikTok video garnered 28 million views. Traditional publishers have hired 'TikTok scouts' to detect the next viral successes before their competitors.
Market concentration is reaching alarming levels. The acquisition of Simon & Schuster by Penguin Random House, finalized in 2025 after the antitrust block was abandoned, created a giant controlling 38% of the English-language market. In France, Hachette (Vivendi) and Editis (Daniel Kretinsky) share 52% of the revenue. Independent bookstores are resisting thanks to public support – the Lang Law on the single book price remains a bulwark – but their market share has fallen to 17%. Editorial diversity, a pillar of intellectual life, depends on the political will to protect an ecosystem that market forces would tend to homogenize.
