Audio out-earned e-books again in June. That sounds like a verdict on e-readers, and for anyone about to buy one, it mostly isn’t. The Association of American Publishers released its June 2026 StatShot report on September 9, 2026, and one line in it has been picked up everywhere. US e-book sales revenue fell 0.3 percent for the month, to 86.4 million dollars. Downloaded audio revenue rose 3.9 percent, to 97.4 million dollars.
What the report says
June 2026 was a strong month for publishers overall. Total reported revenue across all categories reached 936.3 million dollars, up 11.0 percent from June 2025. Trade, which covers consumer books, came in at 765.1 million dollars, up 12.1 percent.
Print did the heavy lifting. Hardback revenue rose 14.5 percent to 243.6 million dollars. Paperback did better still, up 18.2 percent to 292.2 million dollars. Next to those gains, a 0.3 percent dip in e-books is a flat month inside a growing one.
The gap between the two digital formats
In June, downloaded audio brought in 97.4 million dollars and e-books 86.4 million, so audio was about 13 percent larger. The gap is wider for the year so far. Digital audio has reached 597.8 million dollars, up 12.6 percent. E-books are at 516.1 million dollars, down 3.0 percent.
That puts audio 81.7 million dollars ahead year to date. The direction tells you more than the size of the gap, because audio is growing at a double-digit rate and e-books are drifting slightly downward.
E-books, audio and print in proportion
The useful calculation is each format’s share of trade revenue. Divide 86.4 by 765.1 and e-books came to about 11.3 percent of June trade revenue. Digital audio took about 12.7 percent. Together, digital formats made up roughly 24 percent of the month.
Print took roughly three quarters of the month, about 72.9 percent once you combine hardback, paperback, mass market and special bindings. Both digital formats remain in the minority, and the one that shrank slightly is still a very large business.
Revenue is not the same as reading
StatShot measures money reported by participating publishers, not the number of books people read. E-books and audiobooks are also priced very differently, and an audiobook usually costs much more than the same title as an e-book.
So a larger revenue figure doesn’t prove that more people listened than read. The report doesn’t publish unit volumes. If average e-book prices fell, flat revenue could even mean more copies sold, and the published data can’t settle that question either way.
Self-publishing, subscriptions and library loans
Self-published titles are largely outside these figures, and that omission matters more for e-books than for any other format. Subscription reading programs also account for revenue in ways that don’t map neatly onto a per-copy sale.
Library borrowing is left out too. When you borrow an e-book through a public library app, the money changed hands earlier, when the library bought the license. Someone who borrows heavily can read constantly and add almost nothing to the monthly figure.
Buying an e-reader after the June figures
On its own, the report is no reason to change which e-reader you buy. An 11 percent share of a multi-billion dollar market keeps every major e-book store commercially healthy, and nothing in it suggests that Kindle or Kobo catalogs are at risk.
It does suggest that a growing number of readers use both formats in the same week. That makes an e-reader’s audio side worth checking, which is where the hardware differences get awkward.
Audiobook support on e-reader hardware
Most current e-readers list audiobook support, and the phrase hides a lot of variation. Some models have no speaker and no headphone jack at all, so listening means pairing Bluetooth headphones every time.
The Kobo Clara BW is a clear example. It advertises audiobook support and has Bluetooth, yet the hardware has no speaker and no jack. The feature is real, but it’s awkward. Check for a speaker or a headphone jack before you buy, because a spec sheet that says audiobook support tells you almost nothing about how you’ll listen.
Your audiobook library is also locked to the store you bought it from, and moving between platforms is harder for audio than for e-books.
What to watch over the next few months
One month proves very little, and a 0.3 percent dip is well within what normal release scheduling can produce. The year-to-date figures carry more weight. There, a 3.0 percent e-book decline next to a 12.6 percent rise for audio is a real trend.
Watch whether that gap keeps widening through the fall release season. If audio keeps its double-digit growth while e-books hold flat, e-readers that handle both formats well will be worth more to buyers than ones that treat listening as a checkbox.
