Literature in a demographic pit

Women buy a lot, young people read a lot

Traditionally, women are the main audience for book content. Men were interested in books several times less. But this year the situation has changed a little. “There is a positive trend towards rapprochement. According to the results of 2024, we saw that men have become interested in buying and, hopefully, reading books,” said Tatyana Gorskaya.

According to a study of cities with a population of 100,000 people, 19.7 million women read books in 2024, while 13.7 million men did so. But 10.8 million women bought books, which is 5% higher than in 2023. The dynamics of purchases by men exceeded the indicators for women. In their case, the growth in 2024 was 10% compared to the previous year. Only 6.8 million males bought books last year.

As for the age group, young people have been the leader for several years in a row. One of the highest reading rates is among people aged 16-19, 20-24, and 55-64. “Apparently, the speed of life allows people aged 55+ to read what they did not have time to read in previous years. They, of course, choose slightly different literature than reading young people,” added Gorskaya.

According to Tatyana Gorskaya, more than half of the 16-19 age group reads — 62.6%, and in the 20-24 age group — 59.4%. In general, more than half of people of all age groups, except 65+ (here only 42% read), living in cities with a population of over 100 thousand people, have read at least one book per year.

Book purchases among young people are also the highest: 46.4% of young people buy books at the age of 16-19, and 44% in the 20-24 age group. But people aged 55+ buy books less than other age categories, only 14.6% among those over 65, and 22.8% in the 55-64 age group. The greatest dynamics in purchases were shown by people aged 25-34 (37.7%) and 35-44 (29.9%). Their spending on books increased by 15% compared to 2023.

Another failure looms

Tatyana Gorskaya does not consider active reading among young people a phenomenon. This phenomenon has a very simple and logical explanation. About 10 years ago, publishers realised that the demographic hole that existed from 1995 to 2006 would negatively affect the book industry. According to Gorskaya, not all colleagues believed in such a disappointing forecast that the number of books consumed would decrease, as well as the number of people in a certain age group. At the same time, a program to promote reading was launched. Publishers began talking about books with the younger generation on social networks, which just began to actively develop 10 years ago.

The main thing in the strategy of promoting reading among young people is communication in a language they understand. Therefore, bloggers have become the main promoters of books. As a result, publishing houses have updated their SMM editorial offices, which have been run by young people, and sometimes even teenagers. The main platforms for promotion are social networks, where they have launched various reading marathons, TikTok challenges and creative posting.

In addition, they have relaunched classic literature with recommendations from bloggers, changed the style of the covers to a more youthful one. Representatives of the book industry have also organized various activities for young people in libraries and established an award for authors in the Young Adult literature segment.

Thus, according to Tatyana Gorskaya, they managed to overcome the demographic pit of the late 1990s and early 2000s and increase the readership. But it is worth noting that, according to Eurostat, the indicators among European youth are approximately the same. Young audiences aged 16-29 have become the most reading in Europe. In this age group, just over 60% of people have read at least one book in a year. So we can talk about a global trend, which has been greatly influenced by the development of social networks. Take at least the latest case of growth in sales of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel White Nights among British youth, which was facilitated by TikTok users.

We could calm down on this, if not for the next demographic hole in which we now find ourselves. In 2017-2019, the birth rate per woman was 1.6 (2017) and 1.5 (2019). The next critical threshold is now: from 2022, the birth rate fell from 1.416 to 1.332 in 2024. The fact that in 3-5 years the children's book market will shrink significantly, Marina Kadetova, editor-in-chief of KompasGid publishing house, told Realnoe Vremya. This topic is regularly raised by other representatives of the children's industry. It is unknown whether the industry will be able to overcome another demographic hole, since there is no clear understanding yet of when and how to interact with this audience.

Eastern comics and esotericism are not in favour

Tatyana Gorskaya presented rather specific data on niches of the book market. If books are usually divided into categories: fiction, non-fiction, children's and comics, then Gorskaya gave statistics on even narrower segments, highlighting nine areas. According to her data, the share of prose on the book market in 2024 increased by 18%, its sales amounted to 11.6 billion rubles against 9.9 billion rubles in 2023. Despite the fact that the entire children's literature segment fell by 4% in 2024, the children's fiction niche showed growth of 4.2%, and its share was 10.9% compared to 10.5% a year earlier. The largest growth was shown by literature in the Young Adult category. It grew by 19.8%. In 2024, youth literature accounted for 5.9% of sales compared to 4.9% in 2023.

Last year, sales of books on esotericism decreased, which had previously been actively growing: 2.5% in 2022, 3.2% in 2023, 3% in 2024. “Starting in 2022, we had a rather unstable time. People were looking for answers to their questions, resorting to books on numerology, astrology, conspiracy theories and other literature of this kind. Probably, the situation has settled down a bit now. Perhaps we have gotten used to the turbulence or are hoping for it to end, which is why the niche has shown a decline,” suggested Tatyana Gorskaya.

But the biggest decline last year was shown by the segment of oriental comics. They fell by 16.2%, their share was 3.3% compared to 3.9% in 2023. “The American company that provided us with comics left the Russian market, the quality of the film adaptations has changed, the segment is not growing with a new audience. Shueisha (editor’s note: a major manga publisher in Japan) stopped cooperating with Russia. But, fortunately, we managed to reach an agreement. We were able to extend the series and conclude new contracts with the Japanese. In the near future, Japanese manga will appear on the Russian market,” said Gorskaya. In her opinion, now the main buyers of oriental comics are devoted fans of the genre and collectors.

Ekaterina Petrova is a book reviewer of Realnoe Vremya online newspaper, the author of Poppy Seed Muffins Telegram channel and founder of the first online subscription book club Makulatura.