South Africa's book publishing industry pulled in R3.1-billion in 2024/25, down 18% on the previous year. The Publisher’s Association of South Africa attributes a large part of that decline to trade mergers during that period. Jonathan Ball Publishers absorbed both NB Publishers and Van Schaik Publishers in 2025 resulting in a significant dip in reported revenue between 2023/24 and 2024/25 as only one entity reported.

But zoom out and in 2015/16, the industry also turned over roughly R3.3 billion. So almost ten years later and the top line hasn’t moved.

Education publishing remains king at 62% of revenue, and still overwhelmingly print (94%) and English (77%). Digital hasn't taken off and has stuck around 3-6% of sales for years despite government e-library promises. Academic publishing keeps shrinking (-21% this year), squeezed by piracy and hybrid learning.

TVET publishing was added to the list in 2023 and now accounts for roughly 7% of revenue or R362 million, almost entirely print, and almost entirely government-procured through colleges.

And then there's the SMME layer: 26 small publishers, R80.5 million in turnover, most surviving on under R1 million a year. They punch above their weight on language diversity — nearly 30% of their titles are in African languages, versus 12% of big-publisher revenue.