75%
of U.S. adults read at least part of a book in the past year.
Pew surveyed 8,046 adults in October 2025. This includes books read in any format.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 2026Reader Research
Christian Fiction and Book Reading Statistics
Current U.S. data on readers, formats, adult fiction, religious presses, and audiobooks. Updated August 25, 2026.
A Citable Reference
Useful numbers for people who write about books and readers.
This page brings together the clearest recent U.S. data points for conversations around Christian fiction and book reading. It is designed for readers, writers, journalists, librarians, booksellers, and anyone who needs a sourced figure about how Americans read and how the publishing market is moving.
There is no single national tracker for Christian fiction sales alone. To keep the numbers honest, this reference uses national reader surveys plus the closest published market categories: adult fiction and religious presses. Religious press data includes more than Christian fiction, so it is labeled that way throughout.
U.S. Reading Habits
Most adults still read, with print leading the way.
These figures come from Pew Research Center's October 2025 survey of U.S. adults. Readers can use more than one format, so the percentages should not be added together.
64%
read a print book in the past year.
Print remains the only format used by a majority of U.S. adults.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 202631%
read an e-book in the past year.
That share rose from 17% in Pew's 2011 survey.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 202626%
listened to an audiobook in the past year.
Audiobook use more than doubled from 11% in 2011 to 26% in 2025.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 202678%
of women said they read a book in any format in the past year.
The comparable share among men was 71% in the same Pew survey.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 202688%
of adults with a bachelor's degree or more read a book in the past year.
The same survey found a 60% rate among adults with a high school education or less.
Source: Pew Research Center, April 9, 2026Publishing And Audio
Fiction, religious publishing, and audio all showed recent movement.
Market figures describe publisher revenue, not retail spending or individual author earnings. They show the broader environment around the books readers discover and buy.
$7.1B
in U.S. adult fiction publisher revenue in 2025.
Adult fiction revenue grew 3.9% from the previous year.
Source: Association of American Publishers, August 10, 2026$2.2B
in U.S. religious press publisher revenue in 2025.
Religious presses grew 9.3%, the largest increase among the trade categories reported by AAP. This category is broader than Christian fiction.
Source: Association of American Publishers, August 10, 202673.1%
of trade publishing revenue came from hardbacks and paperbacks.
Together, those two print formats accounted for nearly three quarters of trade revenue in 2025.
Source: Association of American Publishers, August 10, 2026$2.43B
in U.S. audiobook sales revenue in 2025.
The Audio Publishers Association reported a 9% increase from the previous year.
Source: Audio Publishers Association, June 5, 2026157M
U.S. adults have listened to an audiobook.
That is 58% of Americans age 18 and older, according to the 2026 consumer survey.
Source: Audio Publishers Association, June 5, 202637.6%
of U.S. adults read a novel or short story in 2022.
The National Endowment for the Arts reported this as the lowest fiction-reading rate in the history of its long-running survey.
Source: National Endowment for the Arts, October 3, 2024What The Numbers Say
Readers meet stories in more than one format.
Print remains central to book reading and trade publishing, while e-books and audiobooks have broadened the ways readers can begin and continue a series. For a character-driven series like Saving Grace, that means discoverability is not limited to one type of reader or one buying habit.
The market data also shows why it is useful to distinguish between reader behavior and publisher revenue. A person may enjoy books in print, e-book, and audio formats, while publishing categories group titles differently. The sources below make those boundaries clear so each statistic can stand on its own.
Explore the Saving Grace series →Methodology And Sources
Every statistic is linked to its original publisher.
Last updated: . This page uses publicly available reports from independent research and publishing organizations. It does not estimate Christian fiction sales where no direct national figure has been published.
- Pew Research Center, April 9, 2026, U.S. adult survey conducted October 6-16, 2025.
- Association of American Publishers, August 10, 2026, calendar year 2025 publishing revenue report.
- Audio Publishers Association, June 5, 2026, 2026 consumer survey and 2025 sales survey.
- National Endowment for the Arts, October 3, 2024, analysis of the 2022 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts.
Cite This Page
Kym Forrest. “Christian Fiction and Book Reading Statistics.” Updated August 25, 2026. https://kymforrest.com/christian-fiction-book-statistics/.