Find / Audience
Compare current reader samples from Canada, Australia and a fantasy-romance community, then see where genre, format, discovery and emerging-intelligence interests overlap.
Original generative artwork · 2026
Australian and Canadian evidence released in 2025–2026
No sound 2025–2026 primary study located in this research pass isolates science-fiction romance as its own worldwide audience. The strongest public evidence measures adjacent categories and different behaviours: Australian reading, genre preferences and discovery; Canadian readers and buyers; and smaller romance-community snapshots. Reader, buyer, purchase and sales figures remain separate.
Creative Australia estimated 14.4 million Australians aged 15+ read at least one print book, ebook or audiobook for pleasure in the previous year.
The main sample was 9,065 people, fielded July–September 2025 and weighted to the 2021 Census for age, gender and location. Format use overlaps and does not mean purchase or preference.
| Genre | Women | Men |
|---|---|---|
| Romance | 49.6% | 12.2% |
| Romantasy | 12.9% | 2.6% |
| Science fiction | 17.6% | 41.6% |
Australia Reads and Monash surveyed 1,622 Australians aged 16+ from an online panel stratified by age, gender and location. Only people who read fiction, graphic novels or young adult books for leisure received this multiple-choice genre question. These are adjacent preferences, not a measured science-fiction-romance overlap; the non-binary/other bases were too small for comparison.
BookNet surveyed 1,979 English-speaking Canadian adults, including 976 book buyers, in July and December 2025. The external online panel was selectively sampled by age, gender and region; results were unweighted with an approximate ±3-point range overall. This is all-book purchasing, not romance alone.
This comes from Creative Australia's general-population online sample of 8,997 people, not readers alone. Respondents could report several discovery paths.
Signals for this catalogue
These findings do not collapse into one imaginary global reader. They show where Luke's catalogue can listen: the junction of romance, fantasy and science fiction; changing format habits; trusted discovery networks; series reading; audio; and reader interest in how AI participates in books.
Among English-speaking Canadian fiction readers in each format, romance reached 29% in print, 36% in ebook and 30% in audio. Fantasy reached 30%, 31% and 33%; science fiction reached 33%, 28% and 34% respectively.
Each format has a separate fiction-reader base. These are reader shares, not market shares. Open the BookNet study ↗
Creative Australia's general-population sample reported word of mouth at 39%, libraries 29%, bookshops 27%, social media 22%, online retailers 20%, reviews 19% and forums including Reddit 10%. Respondents could name several paths.
Among surveyed English-speaking Canadian readers aged 18+, 58% preferred print, 18% ebook, 16% audiobook and 8% had no preference. Annual use was broader and overlapping: 93% print, 71% ebook and 57% audio.
In a 2026 self-selected r/FantasyRomance census, 44.2% wanted equal fantasy and romance and 39.9% wanted more fantasy (n=1,019 for that question). Ebook use reached 83.6% (n=1,020). This is a participating community snapshot, not a population survey.
In the Australian Romance Readers Association's self-selected 2025 survey of 216 people, 51.92% read fantasy romance; 84.73% used ebooks, 77.34% physical books and 37.44% audio. The group is useful for community listening, not national inference.
Across all 1,979 surveyed English-speaking Canadian adults, 65% answered yes or sometimes when asked whether they wanted to know if AI helped produce any aspect of a book. Among the 976 buyers, that figure was 69%; only 3% of buyers first became aware of the purchased book through an AI tool.
Audio and series signals
An Australian National University study released in June 2026 surveyed 503 Australians who had listened to at least one audiobook in the previous year: 59.2% listened weekly or more and 56.3% listened to popular-genre fiction. It measures audiobook listeners, not national prevalence.
BookNet found 37% of surveyed English-speaking Canadian readers read books in a series in 2025. Together these signals support testing series continuity and audio production without assuming either format will work automatically.
Audiobook Reading in Australia ↗ · Canadian Leisure & Reading Study 2025 ↗
No sound 2025–2026 primary study located in this research pass isolates science-fiction romance as its own audience. The Atlas therefore shows Romance, Romantasy, Fantasy and Science Fiction beside one another; it does not manufacture a combined demographic.
