You are viewing your 1 free article this month.
Sign in to make the most of your access to expert book trade coverage.
Folio Society sales up 15% in 2025 as pop culture tie-ins and non-fiction drive growth
The Folio Society increased turnover by 8% to £16.8m in 2025, according to its latest financial report, with pop culture tie-ins, such as Dune and Jurassic Park, and non-fiction driving UK sales growth of 15%. Profit before tax grew by 21%, and the customer base by 8% to 83,000.
In 2025, Folio’s fastest-selling title was a limited edition of The Hobbit, illustrated by Alan Lee, which sold out in 14 minutes. The average sellout time of Folio limited editions in 2025 was 26 hours.
Folio’s non-fiction sales grew by 11%, with popular titles including Brian Cox’s The Universe, Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole, and Walter Lord’s history of the Titanic disaster, A Night to Remember. Folio also saw “significant” growth in 2025 in the sales of titles linked to pop culture releases, including Shogun, Frankenstein and Dune.
Continues…
Read More
Overall, Folio’s top 10 selling books of 2025 were: Dune and Children of Dune by Frank Herbert, Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Shakespeare’s Complete Plays, Fire and Blood by George RR Martin, Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones and Neuromancer by William Gibson. Other “key releases” included Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and DC Comics: Superman.
Meanwhile, the number of US customers grew 13% in 2025, and now accounts for almost half of Folio’s turnover. In 2025, Folio sold its books in more than 100 countries.
Joanna Reynolds, CEO of the Folio Society, who is speaking at The Bookseller’s FutureBook Conference today (1st December), said: “Folio had a good year with all parts of the business humming. Financial metrics are all up. Folio’s books excelled: The Hobbit and It limited editions sold out in minutes, and Homer in hours. Non-fiction continues to thrive, and fantasy, sci-fi as well as modern and older classics all have deep fanbases and communities.
“Folio won the E-Commerce Retail Brand of the Year, reached over 550,000 followers on social, and continued to build our digital and omni-channel marketing. Eighty percent of new customers come to us from the backlist – which is amazing [and] behind it all are the wonderful people who work at Folio. I’d like to thank them all.”
