International Sarajewo Book Fair

Children’s and Young Adult books play a central role in the German market – these days, from the moment a new bookshop opens its doors you can be sure that one of the areas it will specialise in is literature for young people. Where other market segments have seen declining sales for several years now, sales of children’s books have increased. So how big is the audience for children’s and YA books? There are currently 8.3 million people aged between 15 and 24 living in Germany – meaning that this age group, both in terms of its number and as a proportion of the overall population, is the smallest it has been since 1950. At 10.7 million, the number of children aged 0 to 13 has risen slightly and accounts for 12.9 percent of Germany’s population.

The 2021 figures (the figures for 2022 will not be available until mid-2023) for the children’s and YA segment of the German book market show an increase in sales of 4.4 percent on the preceding year. The segment accounts for 18.8 percent of total book sales, putting it in second place just behind fiction; its market share has grown steadily in recent years. According to the market research company Media Control, the amount of books sold also increased again in 2021, by 3 percent (the preceding year saw a 3.7 percent increase).