E-book vs Print vs Audiobook Statistics 2026: What the Numbers Actually Show
By the CaseBlossom team · Updated 15 Oct 2026
In 2026 print still reaches more American readers than any digital format, but e-books have stopped growing and audiobooks are the fastest riser. Pew Research Center's reading survey (fielded 6–16 October 2025 among 8,046 U.S. adults) reports that 64% read a print book in the past year, 31% read an e-book and 26% listened to an audiobook. These are three separate reach measures, not slices of one pie: they sum to 121% because many readers use more than one format. The e-book figure was 30% in 2021 — one point in four years — while audio gained three points over the same window. Age divides the formats far more than technology does: 41% of adults aged 18–29 read e-books, against 23% of those 65 and older. On the revenue side, AAP's StatShot puts e-book revenue at roughly $2.2 billion for calendar 2025, up 3.2%. E-books are not taking over, and they are not dying either.
How many Americans read e-books?
Pew asks whether you read or listened to at least one book in any format in the past 12 months. 75% of U.S. adults said yes in 2025; 25% said no. Within that group, formats overlap — many people read print and e-books — so the format numbers below add up to more than 100%.
| Format, share of U.S. adults (2025 survey) | Readers |
|---|---|
| 64% | |
| E-book | 31% |
| Audiobook | 26% |
| Any book, any format | 75% |
Source: Pew Research Center, survey fielded 6–16 October 2025, n=8,046 U.S. adults.
Is the e-book share still growing?
The long view says e-books won their land-grab phase between 2011 and 2014, then plateaued.
| Year | E-book | Audiobook | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 72% | 17% | 11% |
| 2014 | 69% | 28% | 14% |
| 2016 | 65% | 28% | 14% |
| 2019 | 65% | 25% | 20% |
| 2021 | 65% | 30% | 23% |
| 2025 | 64% | 31% | 26% |
One honesty note you should keep attached to this table: Pew ran 2011–2021 as telephone surveys and 2025 as a mixed telephone-and-web panel, and marks the break itself in the chart. Read the 2011→2014 jump as real and the last four points as broadly stable, not as a perfectly comparable series.
The number that moves most over the long run: audiobook reach went from 11% in 2011 to 26% in 2025, and among adults under 30 it is 32%. If you are choosing a device for someone who commutes, that growth curve matters more than the e-book share.
Who reads e-books, and who listens?
| Group | E-book | Audiobook | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All adults | 64% | 31% | 26% |
| Women | 68% | 33% | 27% |
| Men | 60% | 28% | 24% |
| Ages 18–29 | 66% | 41% | 32% |
| Ages 30–49 | 64% | 33% | 33% |
| Ages 50–64 | 61% | 26% | 23% |
| Ages 65+ | 65% | 23% | 13% |
| College degree+ | 76% | 42% | 35% |
| High school or less | 50% | 20% | 17% |
Three readings of this table:
- Young adults are the e-book format's best audience, not the weakest. 41% of 18–29 year olds read e-books versus 23% of retirees.
- Education moves all three formats together. Graduates out-reach the less-educated in print, digital and audio; the digital formats just widen the gap.
- Asian-American adults lead on e-books (42%, against 30% of white adults and 27% of Black adults), the single biggest ethnic split in the survey.
How many people is "31%" in absolute terms?
Percentages need a denominator, so here is ours, taken from the U.S. Census Bureau's Vintage-2025 national population estimate: 269,763,509 adults aged 18+ as of 1 July 2025.
| Group (our own calculation: Pew percentage × Census 18+ population) | Estimated U.S. adults |
|---|---|
| Read any book (75%) | ~202.3 million |
| Read print (64%) | ~172.6 million |
| Read e-books (31%) | ~83.6 million |
| Listened to audiobooks (26%) | ~70.1 million |
| Read no books at all (25%) | ~67.4 million |
| In a book club (7%) | ~18.9 million |
These are our own arithmetic on top of two published sources, not an official headcount. Treat them as a sanity check: any claim about "the ebook market" should feel wrong if it implies far fewer than 80 million American adult readers or far more than the 202 million who read anything.
The counter-intuitive pairing here is worth stating plainly: 41% of young adults read e-books, but only 7% of adults are in a book club (10% of women, 5% of men). Reading is common; reading socially is rare. That gap is why a gift for a reader tends to be a solo-reading object — a lamp, a case, a bookmark — rather than an experience.
How do we know how many e-readers there are? (We don't.)
There is one number this whole page deliberately does not contain: how many e-readers are sold or in use. Pew measures readers, AAP measures book revenue, and the Census measures people. None of them counts devices. So an article that opens with "there are X million e-readers worldwide" is not citing a statistical agency — it is citing a report that sold that estimate. We covered how those market-size figures compare in a separate page; short version: the publicly quoted "e-reader market size" numbers for the same year differ from each other by more than 7×.
Do e-books make more money than print?
AAP's StatShot annual report (calendar year 2025, released 10 August 2026) is the closest thing the U.S. publishing industry has to a scoreboard. It covers revenue reported by participating publishers — an estimate compiled by Industry Insights from Census Bureau data, publisher submissions and third-party sales panels, not a full market census. The e-book, audio, hardback and paperback rows below are all-sector figures, not trade-only.
| Segment (CY2025) | Revenue | Change |
|---|---|---|
| All publishing revenue | $33.4 billion | +2.5% |
| Trade (consumer books) | $21.7 billion | +2.7% |
| E-books | $2.2 billion | +3.2% |
| Digital audio (audiobooks) | $2.5 billion | +5.3% |
| Hardback | $8.2 billion | +3.9% |
| Paperback | $8.0 billion | +2.1% |
The structural facts, which are the ones worth remembering:
- Print still accounts for 50.6% of all publisher revenue, more than all digital formats combined.
- Digital formats (e-book + audio) reached 21.5% of trade revenue — up from 21.4%. That is a plateau, not a crossover.
- Audiobooks ($2.5B) now out-earn e-books ($2.2B) in the same panel, and audio is growing at nearly twice the rate.
- Online retail is the largest sales channel at $12.3 billion (+3.1%), but physical retail grew faster (+7.2%). Bookstores are not the losing side of this story.
A caution on quoting StatShot around the holidays: AAP publishes monthly figures alongside the annual ones, and a monthly number (for example a single month's e-book revenue of $601.4 million, down 3.1% year on year) is not comparable to an annual total. Do not let a headline that says "e-book revenue falls" substitute a month for a year.
So what should you do with all this?
If you are buying an e-reader, or a case for one, the data supports three practical conclusions:
- Nobody is trapped in one format. Roughly a third of readers use e-books and nearly two-thirds use print; the median reader's habits are mixed. A device that carries your whole library is a real convenience, not a bet against paper. Our own catalogue is a mirror of that mix: the same artwork is listed for e-ink readers as a Kindle case and as a Kobo case, because the readers — not the formats — are what people keep.
- Younger and highly-educated readers skew digital — so gifts for readers in that group plausibly arrive with a device already in the box. If you are buying for a 25-year-old, a case, a light or a sleeve is more likely to land than another book. Our own shortlist is Best Gifts for Kindle Owners; the listings that get bought as gifts most often are named ones like Library Valentine and the botanical end of the catalogue, floral Kindle cases.
- The compatibility question matters more than the format debate. Devices get redesigned, and cases do not carry across generations reliably. Before buying for someone else's reader, use Identify Your Kindle Model and the case compatibility guide rather than guessing by screen size alone. If their reader genuinely is not on a size list, the made-to-order path is design your own Kindle case.
FAQ
What percentage of people read e-books?
31% of U.S. adults said they read at least one e-book in the past 12 months in Pew Research Center's October 2025 survey of 8,046 adults. That is about 84 million adults, using the Census Bureau's 2025 adult population estimate, and the figure overlaps with the 64% who read print.
Are e-books declining?
No. E-book reach rose from 17% in 2011 to 31% in 2025, but has moved only one point since 2021 (30% → 31%). Revenue rose 3.2% in 2025 to roughly $2.2 billion. E-books are stable, not declining, and no longer growing quickly.
Which is growing faster, e-books or audiobooks?
Audiobooks. Pew's audio reach went from 23% (2021) to 26% (2025) while e-books went from 30% to 31%, and AAP reports digital audio revenue up 5.3% against e-books up 3.2%. Audio is the format still adding users.
Do most people still read print books?
Yes. 64% of U.S. adults read print against 31% for e-books, and print generates 50.6% of U.S. publisher revenue according to AAP's StatShot. Print remains the majority format by readers and by dollars.
How many e-readers are sold each year?
Not knowable from the free public sources. Pew counts readers, AAP counts book revenue and the Census counts people; none counts devices. Any specific annual unit figure you find comes from a commercial market report, and those reports disagree by a wide margin.
Sources
- Pew Research Center, "Americans still opt for print books over digital or audio versions, few are in book clubs", published 9 April 2026, survey fielded 6–16 October 2025, n=8,046 U.S. adults (page includes the downloadable topline data). https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2026-04-09/americans-still-opt-for-print-books-over-digital-or-audio-versions-few-are-in-book-clubs/ — accessed 15 October 2026.
- Association of American Publishers, "AAP StatShot Annual Report: Publishing Revenues Totaled $33.4 Billion for CY2025", released 10 August 2026, compiled by Industry Insights. https://publishers.org/news/aap-statshot-annual-report-publishing-revenues-totaled-33-4-billion-for-calendar-year-2025/ — accessed 15 October 2026.
- U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Vintage-2025 national population estimates by age and sex (table SCPRC-EST2025-18+POP), 1 July 2025. https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html — accessed 15 October 2026.
- Absolute reader counts on this page are CaseBlossom's own arithmetic: Pew percentages × the Census 18+ estimate. They are estimates, not published statistics.