Overview of book publishing in Russia, H1 2026: publications grow, but print runs decline

From micro-print runs to bestsellers

According to RSL data, in the first half of 2026, 53,508 books and brochures were published in Russia with a total print run of 150.8 million copies. Publishers increased the number of titles by 0.85% compared to the first half of 2025. However, the total print run decreased by 12.59%. Market participants attribute this to the entry into force of amendments to the law banning the promotion of drugs. Back in February, the CEO of Eksmo publishing house, Evgeny Kapiev, said that all the publishing house's efforts in the first two months of the year were devoted to checking books for compliance with the new legislation. Because of this, production capacity had to be reduced. Hence the drop in print runs.

The average print run per edition, according to RSL data, also decreased: from 3.25 thousand to 2.82 thousand copies. The gap between the number of titles and print run shows that publishers continue to expand their assortment but print each individual item cautiously, preferring smaller quantities to risky large initial print runs. Over the half-year, the RSL recorded 46,558 books with a print run of 119.5 million copies. They accounted for 87% of all titles and 79.3% of the total print run. The number of books increased by 1.78%, while their print run decreased by 10.70%.

The market is particularly divided along the “series — non-series” principle. 26,591 series publications accounted for 49.7% of the total output but delivered 82.6% of the total print run, or 124.6 million copies. The remaining titles accounted for about 26.2 million copies. At the same time, the average print run of non-series publications was below 1,000 copies. That is, almost half of the publications concentrate the main part of the printed print run.

No less noticeable is the difference between new publications and reprints. New releases accounted for 88.1% of titles but delivered 69% of the print run. Publishers issued 47,141 such editions with an average print run of 2.21 thousand copies. Reprints accounted for only 11.9% of titles but provided 31.05% of the print run. Most likely, large print runs of reprints refer to classical literature. Their average print run reached 7.35 thousand copies. At the same time, publishers reduced both the number of reprints — by 8.73% — and their print run — by 16.20%.

Format also changes the picture. Paperback maintained its lead, covering 60.3% of titles and 64% of the print run. But its print run decreased by 16.53%, while hardcover lost only 4.60%. At the same time, in terms of printed volume, the formats were almost equal: 51% went to paperback and 49% to hardcover. Hardcover books are on average noticeably thicker: 19.2 printed sheets versus 11.2 for paperback books.

The structure of print runs is most influenced by the upper part of the market. Almost half of all titles — 24,837 publications, or 46.4% of the output — were published with a print run of up to 500 copies. They accounted for only 3.4% of the total print run. Another 3,830 publications fell into the range of 500 to 1,000 copies. As a result, 53.6% of all titles had a print run of less than 1,000 copies, and their combined share of the print run was only 5.7%.

At the same time, the largest working range in terms of the number of publications — 1–5 thousand copies — shows growth. It includes 18,122 publications, or 33.9% of the output, and delivers 53.7 million copies, or 35.6% of the total print run. The number of titles here increased by 3.95%, and the print run — by 2.16%. The average print run was 2.96 thousand copies.

The main reduction occurred elsewhere. Publishers issued 92 publications with a print run of over 100 thousand copies compared to 132 a year earlier. Their total print run fell from 40.8 million to 22.8 million copies. The number of such publications decreased by 30.3%, and the print run — by 44.1%. The share of this group in the total print run decreased from 23.6% to 15.1%.

This group explains a significant part of the overall decline. The market lost 21.7 million copies per year, and the reduction in print runs over 100 thousand copies accounted for 18 million of that. In other words, this segment accounted for about 83% of the total decline. At the same time, the number of publications with print runs of 50–100 thousand copies increased (from 94 to 110). Their total print run also increased (from 6.55 million to 8.06 million copies).

If we consider geography, the most publications are produced in Moscow. It delivered 31,558 titles (59% of all books published) with a total print run of 130.18 million copies (86.3% of the entire Russian print run). St. Petersburg took second place in the number of publications (6,358), but its total print run was only 7.36 million copies. The average print run in the Northern capital was only 1.16 thousand copies.

Top 10 Russian regions by total print run of books and brochures

Among the regions, the Rostov Region showed figures close to St. Petersburg. It published 1,722 editions with a total print run of 7.04 million copies. The average print run of books was 4.09 thousand copies; by this indicator, the region almost caught up with Moscow. And the Smolensk Region even surpassed it. Here, only 73 editions were published in 349.55 thousand copies, and the average print run was 4.79 thousand copies. In the Yaroslavl Region, 350 books were published in 693.1 thousand copies.

In Moscow, the average print run was 4.12 thousand copies, which noticeably raises the national average. If we exclude the capital, the average print run across the country approaches 0.94 thousand copies. And in most regions, it does not exceed 1 thousand copies.

As for Tatarstan, 747 book titles were published here. With these figures, the republic took seventh place in Russia in the number of titles. In terms of total print run, Tatarstan rose to fifth place (652.6 thousand copies). In the Volga Federal District, Tatarstan took first place in print run and second in the number of publications after Bashkortostan. At the same time, Tatarstan publishes noticeably more books than many of the leading regions in terms of print run. But publications issued in the republic show a relatively low average figure (0.87 thousand copies per publication). For comparison: Bashkortostan published 952 books against 747 in Tatarstan, but collected only 440.56 thousand copies against 652.6 thousand. Tatarstan also has a significantly higher average print run (0.87 thousand versus 0.46 thousand copies).

From English to Tatar: the language map of book publishing

If the book market as a whole showed a decline in print runs, then translated literature feels somewhat more confident than the “average temperature in the hospital.” The RSL registered 8,608 translated editions with a total print run of 28.53 million copies. This is 16.1% of all titles and 18.9% of the total print run. Compared to the first half of 2025, the number of translated editions increased by 4.8%, while the print run decreased by only 1.4%. The average print run of a translated edition was 3.31 thousand copies versus 2.82 thousand on average in the market.

At the same time, the translated segment is mainly represented by books originally written in English. They occupy first place by a large margin. In total, translations from English numbered 4,355, or 50.6% of all translated titles. Together, they accounted for 16.64 million copies, which equals 58.3% of the entire translated print run. Second in popularity after English are European languages, but their figures are significantly lower than the leader. Translations from French numbered 714 with a total print run of 2.65 million copies; from German — 601 editions with a print run of 2.13 million copies.

For several years now, translations from East Asian languages have been gaining volume. Books translated from Japanese numbered 421 with a print run of 1.93 million copies; from Korean — 254 editions and 0.99 million copies; from Chinese — 229 editions with a total print run of 0.67 million copies. At the same time, books originally written in Japanese and Korean have high average print runs: 4.6 thousand and 3.9 thousand copies, respectively. Chinese editions had an average print run of 2.9 thousand copies. These figures exceed the average print run for the translated segment, which is 3.31 thousand copies.

Top 10 languages of origin by print run

A separate group is formed by translations from the languages of the peoples of Russia. In total, the RSL registered translations from 52 such languages — 2,062 editions with a total print run of 4.17 million copies. This statistic also includes the Russian language: 974 editions with a print run of 567.5 thousand copies were translated from Russian. If we exclude Russian, the remaining languages of the peoples of the Russian Federation account for 1,088 editions and 3.60 million copies.

In total, 20 books were translated from the Tatar language with a total print run of 27.55 thousand copies. The average print run was 1.38 thousand copies, and the average volume of one edition was 18.2 printed sheets. According to RSL data, in terms of the number of translations, Tatar leads among the indigenous languages of the peoples of Russia. For comparison: 12 books were translated from Bashkir, six from Yakut, and three from Udmurt. At the same time, Tatar literature is much more often published in Tatar itself than through translations. In the first half of 2026, 155 books were published in the Tatar language. For every eight books published in Tatar, approximately one translation from it is published.

Top 10 languages of publication in Russia (excluding Russian) by print run

The book market in detail

According to RSL data, in the first half of 2026, literature on education, culture, and media had a total print run of 58.2 million copies, which is 38.6% of the total print run. However, in terms of the number of titles, this segment took only third place with a share of 13.98% of total book publishing. Books in the political and socio-economic literature category, on the contrary, became leaders in the number of publications. A total of 11,992 book titles were published (or 22.4% of the total output), but this is only 10.8% of the total print run.

Top 10 subsections of fiction (by print run)

In the fiction segment, 12,207 publications for adults and 6,600 for children were published. At the same time, their total print runs almost coincided: 32.5 million and 32.2 million copies, respectively. However, the average print run of a children's book was significantly higher (4.88 thousand copies in the children's segment versus 2.67 thousand in adult fiction).

Within the fiction category, Russian prose, poetry, and drama maintain leadership both in the number of titles and in print runs (5,401 editions and 8.29 million copies). Foreign prose is inferior in the number of titles — 1,756 versus 5,401. However, in terms of average print run, it significantly surpasses Russian (4.3 thousand versus 1.5 thousand copies). Science fiction and mysticism occupy a large niche in book publishing. Translated literature here had a total print run of 4.85 million copies with 1,171 titles; Russian — 3.84 million with 1,361 editions. The average print run of foreign science fiction was 4.1 thousand copies, and of Russian — 2.8 thousand.

The Russian romance novel collected 1.87 million copies in only 329 books. The average print run in this segment was 5.7 thousand copies. This is one of the highest figures among fiction niches. The foreign sentimental romance novel gave a total of 730.4 thousand copies with 190 titles.

Memoirs and biographies occupy a small niche. In total, 216 editions were published in this category with a total print run of 288 thousand copies, that is, on average about 1.3 thousand copies per book. Literature in the languages of the peoples of Russia also remains low-circulation (167 editions with a total print run of 107.4 thousand).

In non-fiction literature, the gap between large and narrow segments is even more noticeable. Books in the “Education. Pedagogy” segment had a total print run of 57.93 million copies with 7,128 titles. Second place was taken by children's educational literature (13.40 million copies and 2,344 editions). And then the indicators in other categories drop sharply. Psychology books came out with a print run of 4.75 million copies, medicine — 3.30 million, religion — 2.48 million.

Top 10 sections of non-fiction literature (by print run)

At the same time, psychology shows a higher average print run than history or law (2.9 thousand copies versus 0.9 thousand and 0.8 thousand, respectively). Religious literature also has a relatively high indicator (2.4 thousand copies with 1,021 titles). But literature on economics shows the opposite situation. Here, 1,802 editions were published with a total print run of only 1.1 million copies, and the average print run per book was about 0.6 thousand.

Scientific literature entered the number of leaders in terms of the number of titles (7,964 editions, or 14.89% of the total output by purpose). But the total print run was only 2.78 million copies. The average print run generally showed the lowest indicator among the main categories (350 copies). At the other end of the scale were official publications. In total, the RSL registered 129 titles, but their average print run was 4.01 thousand copies. This small segment in terms of the number of publications took tenth place in total print run.

Educational and methodological publications in total had a print run of 60.69 million copies, which is 40.24% of the total print run. Literary and artistic publications for adults — 32.54 million, publications for children and youth — 32.24 million. Together, these three categories provided 83.2% of the total print run by purpose. At the same time, within the educational literature category, the best indicators are for publications for secondary schools. In total, 4,207 titles were published with a print run of 49.21 million copies. This is 32.63% of the total Russian book print run for the half-year. And the average print run of a school textbook was 11.7 thousand copies.

Top 10 categories by print run

In children's literature, 6,600 editions were published with a print run of 32.24 million copies. On average, one book accounted for 4.88 thousand copies (versus 2.67 thousand for adult fiction). Within the children's segment, 18.84 million copies went to literary and artistic publications and 13.40 million to educational and popular science publications.

The main players in the Russian book market

Almost three-quarters of all books in the first half of 2026 were published by publishing houses that are part of large federal groups and specialized publishing centers. The RSL received mandatory copies from 3,266 publishers and publishing groups. At the same time, the leaders change depending on which indicator is taken as the main one — print run or number of titles. According to RSL data, Eksmo published 5,997 book titles, AST — 5,262, and Prosveshchenie — 3,176. The three groups together published 14,435 editions, which is 27% of all book publishing. But in terms of print run, their positions look different. Prosveshchenie printed 45.16 million copies, Eksmo — 23.54 million, AST — 19.47 million. In total, the three groups produced 88.17 million copies, which is 58.5% of the total print run.

The biggest difference between the number of books published and print run is at Lan. The publishing house took fourth place in the number of publications but published only 64.98 thousand copies. The average print run was about 41 copies. In the same group, the statistics show a model of low-circulation book publishing: Izdatelskie Resheniya published 374 titles with a total print run of 1.42 thousand copies, Pero — 372 titles and 102.54 thousand copies, Sputnik + — 148 titles and 22.59 thousand copies.

The number of titles does not always show the scale of a publishing house. Prosveshchenie publishes almost twice as few titles as Eksmo, but its total print run is almost twice as high. The average print run of one edition at Prosveshchenie reaches 14.22 thousand copies. For Eksmo, this figure is 3.93 thousand, and for AST — 3.70 thousand. Ekzamen stands out even more. The publishing house takes seventh place in total print run, although it publishes only 230 titles. The average print run of one edition reaches 17.13 thousand copies. Textbooks and workbooks allow the publishing house to produce a relatively small assortment but in large print runs.

Top 10 publishing houses in Russia by total print run

The print run ranking also shows the weight of the children's segment. In the top ten, several publishing houses specialize in children's literature: Klever-Media-Group, Rosman, Mozaika-Sintez, and SIMBAT. Their average print runs range from 5.26 thousand to 9.41 thousand copies. This corresponds to the general RSL statistics: 6,600 children's publications gave 32.24 million copies, almost as many as 12,207 adult fiction publications — 32.54 million.

Regional players occupy a separate niche in the ranking. Fenix from Rostov-on-Don entered the top ten in the number of titles and took 11th place in print run with 3.11 million copies. The list also includes Fenix+, Legion, Universitetskaya Kniga, and publishing houses from Ufa, Krasnodar, Saratov, and other cities.

No publishing house from Tatarstan entered the top 50 in terms of the number of titles. To get into this list, it was necessary to publish at least 124 editions. At the same time, the Tatar Book Publishing House took 34th place in total print run. It published 114 books with a total print run of 372.2 thousand copies; on average, 3.26 thousand copies of one book were printed. Publishing houses in Tatarstan as a whole published 747 titles with a print run of 652.6 thousand copies. The Republic of Tatarstan took seventh place in the number of publications and fifth in print run among Russian regions.

As for printing, in the first half-year, the RSL received mandatory copies from 1,918 printing houses. The top five enterprises by print run are Pareto-Print, Smolensk Printing Plant, Ulyanovsk Printing House IPK, Tver Printing Plant, and Mozhaisk Printing Plant. Together, they printed more than 72 million copies of books.

Three printing houses from the Tver Region made it into the top ten (Pareto-Print, Tver Printing Plant, and Tver Printing Plant for Children's Literature), which printed a total of 38.1 million copies.

Kazan also entered the list of 50 printing centers. Idel-Press took ninth place with a print run of 5.01 million copies. Ekopeyper was in 17th place, printing 2.41 million copies. The printing house Prompoligraf closed the top fifty with 192.81 thousand copies.

Anna Jane is again in the lead

The twenty most published fiction authors together gave 1,913 editions and 6.46 million copies. The average print run of one edition in this group was 3.38 thousand copies. Anna Jane took first place, leading this ranking for the fourth year in a row. 75 editions gave 1.14 million copies. The average print run reached 15.16 thousand copies. For comparison: Fyodor Dostoevsky's books were published in 98 editions with a print run of 658.73 thousand copies, and Stephen King's — 170 editions with a print run of 597.5 thousand copies.

Top 10 fiction authors by print run

Stephen King leads precisely in the number of editions: 170 titles in half a year. His average print run is four times lower than Anna Jane's. Haruki Murakami takes fourth place in total print run, but his average print run reaches 8.36 thousand copies.

Classics occupy a significant part of the top twenty. In addition to Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and Pushkin, it includes Gogol, Chekhov, Remarque, Orwell, Bradbury, Alcott, Brontë, and Dumas. Modern Russian science fiction is represented by the Strugatsky brothers. Pushkin remains the only poet in the top 20.

In the children's segment, print run efficiency is noticeably higher. The twenty most published authors gave 599 editions and 4.42 million copies. The average print run was 7.38 thousand copies — more than twice as high as the average figure for adult fiction from the authors' ranking. Elena Ulyeva took first place with 435.5 thousand copies and 98 editions. But the maximum average print run was shown by Andrey Usachev: 25 editions gave 407 thousand copies, that is, 16.28 thousand copies per edition.

Top 10 children's authors by print run

Here, the difference between seriality and print run efficiency is particularly noticeable. Ulyeva publishes almost four times more titles than Usachev but is inferior to him in average print run. Vladimir Suteev, with 23 editions, receives 321 thousand copies, that is, 13.96 thousand per title. At the same time, the children's top maintains a strong reliance on classics. Chukovsky and Pushkin almost coincided in both indicators: 70 editions each and about 332 thousand copies. The top ten also includes Suteev, Perrault, Tolstoy, Oster, and Andersen. Modern Russian authors are represented by Ulyeva, Usachev, and Gagloev.

Ekaterina Petrova — literary critic for the online newspaper Realnoe Vremya, host of the Telegram channel «Булочки с маком».