A few of the trends we have decided to examine this year in the book industry over the years 2007-2016: prose and poetry books in Hebrew and children's books in Hebrew and Arabic.

Some interesting data points
• According to the National Library's estimate, about 7300 books were published in print in 2016. Of them, 89% were published in Hebrew and approximately 3% were published in Arabic.
• Of all authors and writers, only 35% are women. According to population groups, 48% of the prose writers and children's literature in the Haredi community are women, compared to 40% of women in the general public.

• Approximately 75 prose books written in the genre of 'romantic novel' and erotic literature this year. The majority of them were written by women.
• There was an increase in original Israeli children's literature in Arabic, but only a little of it is intended for children aged 8-16, and the vast majority is intended for children of preschool age.
• Nearly 40% of commercial books are published by the top ten publishers. Approximately 46% of books published are by 200 small publishers.
• Over the past decade, between 1300 and 1150 prose books a year have been published in Israel, including translations. In recent years, there has been a slight downward trend in the number of prose books published in Hebrew.
• 65% of the prose books published in Israel in the last decade were original Israeli prose.
• In the last decade, the majority of the original literature was written in Hebrew, but a considerable percentage was also written in Russian, Arabic and English. Other original Israeli books are published in French and Romanian as well as in Yiddish.
• Over the past decade, some 1000 children's books were published per year in the country.
• Poetry books have seen an increase in publication in the last decade. The majority of them (at 70%) are published by commercial publishers.
• In Israel there is a clear preference for original poetry over translated poetry, which consists less than 10% of the poetry published.
• Of the original poetry books published in Israel, Hebrew is the dominant language (80%), but the next language is not English but Russian (13%).
