Julie Broad breaks down a 2026 Authors Guild study showing only 25% of books are purchased; the rest come from libraries, subscriptions, or piracy. Authors should chase readers, not sales, because reading leads to consulting gigs, speaking fees, and board positions. Library readers are often wealthy professionals, and one library purchase reaches many people.
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Wow, only 25% of books read last month were actually purchased. Now, I didn't say people weren't reading, although it has gone down a little bit, but what I did say was 25% of readers bought the book they read last month according to an Authors Guild study released in June 2026. If you're an author who is hoping book royalties will fund your retirement, or you're wondering if you're going to sell any books, well, this video is for you. Hey there, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers and your host here at booklaunchers.tv. Only 25% of books read in the previous month were purchased as new books. Think about that for a second. 3 out of every 4 books people read came from something other than purchasing them. Libraries, author copies, subscription services, used books, books borrowed from friends, books already sitting on shelves at home. And yeah, in some cases piracy. To that point of what we really do at Book Launchers, this study is really important for authors to understand because authors who understand the market shift are the ones who are going to own the future. Now first, here's the good news. People are still reading. The first mistake would be looking at this study and saying books are dying. No, people are still reading and they are listening to audiobooks. Audiobook sales rose by 9% in the same timeframe. People are still consuming ideas. They're just accessing books differently. And the battle is not in selling books. It's about getting discovered by the right people. And that's a distinction many authors still miss as they focus on book sales and wonder why the opportunities aren't hitting their doorstep. Discovery is more important than purchase. But that's only going to work if you've set up your author business to profit from discovery, not just book sales. For years, authors have been conditioned to focus almost entirely on sales. How many copies sold? Click the rank on Amazon, where am I at? And it is the easiest metric for you to monitor and measure. But this study suggests something else matters even more. How many people actually read your book? Because whether someone buys your book, borrows it from the library, gets it as a gift, discovers it through a subscription service, or some other method, the outcome is the same. If they read it, your ideas reached another human being. And that's where the opportunity is. One of the things I hear all the time is, I want to write a book so I have something to hand out. In other words, they want a business card. And I cringe when people say they want a business card book because people throw away business cards. And a business card is not a piece of intellectual property. And nobody recommends a business card to their friends. A great book is not a business card. It's intellectual property. It is an asset, and it gets shared, talked about. And if you want to be a known name, you need to be talked about when you're not in the room. And being an author of something worth reading enables that to happen. And even if you don't care if you're getting talked about, if you wrote your book for impact, you need this to happen. So often people recommend books to other people. Listen closely at the next dinner party or business meeting. Book recommendations are happening all the time, and people buy based on recommendations. But how many books do you recommend that you have not read? Not very many. You're recommending the ones you've read and enjoyed and benefited from. According to this Author Guild study, discovery is increasingly happening outside traditional book purchase. And the authors who are winning, they understand this. They understand that books create opportunities far beyond the revenue generated by the book itself. Think about it and do the math. Which author would you rather be? The author who sells 5,000 copies of a book and earns $4 per copy? Or the author who sells 500 copies of their book but lands a $250,000 annual consulting contract because the right executive read the book. Right? The author who gets invited onto a major stage because an event organizer discovered their book, or the author that's offered a board position because someone read their book. Dream job. You know, all the things that can happen as a result. And by the way, all those things have happened for our clients and then some when their book was read. And what's interesting in many cases is the opportunity had nothing to do with how many books were sold. It happened because the right person read the book, and that's a really different measurement of success, and it's one that a lot of authors aren't paying attention to because they're focused on sales. The other thing that was interesting in this study— libraries. They are more valuable than a lot of authors realize. One of the interesting findings of the study was that library users were often highly educated, fully employed, and earning more than $75,000 per year. And I think for some authors, there's an assumption bias that happens when it comes to library users. And they believe that high-income earners aren't using the library. That assumption is that they borrow books because they can't afford to buy books. The research does not support that at all. You might see a library borrow and think lost sale. Because the library buys your book once and lends it out over and over and over. But what the research shows is that your ideal client could be finding you in the library. The question, it's not whether your reader paid for the book. It's what happens after they read it. And if you've carefully considered this as you wrote your book, you're in a strong position to capitalize on it. Do you have calls to action or invitations in your book to connect with you or go to your website? If you wrote a good book and hoped it would do good things, well, you have to get lucky. But if you planned for it, well, it's a lot likely that good things will happen. The authors building meaningful businesses or at least driving massive impact from their book are focused on discovery, platform building, and being the owner of a business. They're creating books worth reading and recommending, understanding who their reader is and how they can do more for them than just produce a book. And they're creating ways to monetize their intellectual property beyond the ink on the page. If you see the stat and think only 25% of the books read were purchased, you're not looking at the way I am because I see a challenge. If 5,000 people read your book this year, would you rather spend your time worrying about how many of them bought it or would you celebrate that 5,000 people read your book? The future? It belongs to authors who optimize for discovery, reach, and intellectual property value, not just book sales. If you want help with that, come on over to our free community over at booklaunchers.com/authorlab. See you there.
