Every number on this site, with its source.
We ask you to trust us with a manuscript, so the least we can do is say where our figures come from — including the ones we calculated ourselves and the ones that are estimates. Where a number is ours rather than an industry body’s, it says so.
- 3.5M
New self-published titles registered in the US in a single year.
Bowker / ProQuest, ISBN self-publishing report
Counts ISBNs registered to self-publishers. It excludes Amazon-issued ASINs, so the true number of new indie titles is higher, not lower.
- under 5%
Share of self-published titles that exist in more than one language.
Our derivation from public catalogue sampling
We sampled 2,000 randomly drawn self-published English-language titles and checked for an edition in another language under the same author. This is our own estimate, not an industry figure, and we label it as such wherever it appears.
- $11.3B
Size of the German book market, the largest in Europe.
Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen
Converted from euro at the average annual rate for the reporting year. Trade turnover across all channels.
- +11.2%
Year-on-year growth in Brazilian trade book revenue.
NielsenIQ BookData / Painel do Varejo de Livros no Brasil
Nominal revenue growth, not inflation-adjusted. Brazilian inflation over the same period materially reduces the real figure.
- $14,000 / eight months
What commissioning a literary translator for one 100,000-word novel typically costs.
Published association rate guidance
Derived from mid-range literary rates published by translator associations (roughly $0.12–$0.16 per word) applied to a 100,000-word manuscript, plus a copy-edit of the translated text. Individual quotes vary widely; treat it as a planning range, not a quote.
- Reader counts by language
The readership figures on the map and the language table.
Ethnologue and national statistics offices
First-language plus fluent second-language speakers, rounded down. These are speaker counts, not book-buyer counts, and buying power varies enormously between markets — the estimator applies a separate revenue share per market for that reason.
Found a figure on this site that isn’t listed here, or one you think is wrong? Write to us and we’ll either cite it or remove it. This page is reviewed annually.