Publishers, it’s that time again, the time we ask you to help us with our big picture research of the Canadian book industry. You may remember contributing to a survey similar to this two years ago that let us create The State of Publishing in Canada 2019. With all that has happened since, this year’s survey results will be critical to helping all of us understand the health of the industry and the macro-level changes that have occurred in the intervening years.

We know many publishers rely on BookNet Canada’s research to inform their business decisions. If you’re one of them, we’d encourage you to take the time to contribute your answers to this survey. The subsequent free study will be the go-to for research on the Canadian publishing market, providing answers about the English-language digital sales market that cannot be found anywhere else.

Want to know how your company compares to the rest of the market? Wish there were ways to identify areas of improvement with relation to what your competitors are doing? The more companies that respond to the survey, the better BookNet will be able to provide the answers to these questions!

We’re going to be asking you about your print book, ebook, and audiobook business, what challenges you're facing, and more. (If you’d like, you can see all the questions we'll be asking in this PDF before you start the survey.) All answers will be confidential and the results will be shared in aggregate in the free study to be released later this year.

All publishers who complete the survey will receive an advance copy of the final study.

Helpful tips & information for taking the survey

But before you rush off we have some important points to note and some tips on what to have ready before you start.

A couple of important points to note:

We would like publishers to respond directly, rather than digital asset managers or distributors. If you are exclusively a digital asset manager or distributor, then please forward this survey to your clients.
It’s fine if more than one person in your company responds. If this occurs and any discrepancies arise in the responses, we'll be in touch to clarify.
If you are a publisher that distributes titles for other companies, please include this data in your responses.
The survey asks questions about both production and sales for both print and digital content (ebooks and audiobooks) so you may want to make sure you have access to that information before beginning.

Before you start:

Make sure you have the following information ready to go (approximations are fine if exact numbers are not available):

General overview of sales in 2021
Return rates in 2021 (as broken down by market, print vs. digital vs. audio, channel and genre/category)
Knowledge of where your ebooks and audiobooks are being sold and by whom

If you need a break, you can close the survey and come back to it later on the same computer. If you have any questions that haven’t been answered here or requests for accommodations in completing the survey, please get in touch: research@booknetcanada.ca.