AAP 2025 Revenue Report: Where Publishing Grew

When the Association of American Publishers released its StatShot Annual report for calendar year 2025, it estimated that the U.S. publishing industry generated an estimated $33.4 billion, a 2.5% increase over the previous year. AAP chief operating officer Syreeta Swann described "a healthy and agile publishing industry." The figures raise a narrower question: how much of the rise reflects new readers, and how much reflects price.

Trade revenue rose 2.7% to an estimated $21.7 billion. Within trade, hardbacks and paperbacks together accounted for 73.1% of revenue, and print formats made up 76.3% of trade revenue overall. Growth was uneven by category. Religious presses posted the largest gain, up 9.3% to $2.2 billion. Adult fiction grew 3.9% to $7.1 billion, while adult nonfiction rose 1.3% to $6.0 billion and children's and young adult fiction 0.9% to $5.4 billion. The report's headline revenue figures do not by themselves separate higher prices from higher unit sales.

The Digital Stagnation Paradox

Digital formats, ebooks and digital audio, accounted for 14.2% of all publisher revenue in 2025, up 4.3% on the year. Digital audio rose 5.3% to $2.5 billion and ebooks 3.2% to $2.2 billion. Within trade, digital formats made up 21.5% of revenue. Publishers Weekly reported that more than 1,600 participating publishers reported $12.3 billion of the total, with the rest estimated through extrapolation, market modeling and research. Independent authors using platforms like Amazon sell ebooks outside that publisher survey.

What the Numbers Do Not Show

The 2025 report describes an industry that grew modestly, with print still dominant in trade and digital formats growing faster from a smaller base. Whether that growth reflects more readers or higher prices is a question the headline figures leave open. The full StatShot Annual, which includes unit sales and average net unit price, is sold by the AAP to members and subscribers.

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