Reading is one of life’s small pleasures, offering us the opportunity to explore new worlds, develop our knowledge and experience life from different perspectives. But are those perspectives all that different? As Aotearoa trends toward a more diverse population, it’s important to ask, because at heart, many of us just want to read a story where we can see ourselves represented on the page.

There is a quick answer to the big question: Pākehā, primarily women authors, are published significantly more than anyone else. I’ve used the most recent and comprehensive yearly breakdown of books published in Aotearoa, which is from 2024 (there are notes on my methods below). It shows that cisgender Pākehā women make up the majority in all three areas studied: poetry, fiction and general non-fiction. The dial hasn’t shifted much in terms of representation of other parts of society, though there are small positive shifts

Comparing this data to 2023 Census data, we can see that by proportion, Pākehā (67.8% of the general population) are overrepresented in publishing compared to Māori (17.8%), Asian (17.3%), Pasifika (8.9%) and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African (1.9%). Māori, Pasifika and Asian writers gained small percentages in 2024, but as they are published in such small numbers, a single additional writer can skew the data for a particular year. Asian and Pasfika authors are published at about half the rate of their representation in the population. As in 2023, no Middle Eastern, Latin American or African writers appear in the 2024 data.

While the minor gains for ethnic minorities may suggest a positive shift in Aotearoa publishing, digging into the data shows that it’s not commercial, large publishers diversifying their lists, but rather more independent small press publishing happening. In 2024, it was small presses that published all New Zealand Pasifika authors and approximately half of New Zealand Māori and Asian authors.

There are positive shifts, however. Māori published more titles in 2024 than in 2023. Four trans and three gender diverse writers were published in 2024. In the poets, we saw an almost Census-accurate split of gender and ethnicity.

Let's break it down by category.

The fiction data, tracking 69 titles by 66 authors, has barely changed since 2023. Small changes trend toward more authors and better representation for minority groups. Notably, in the gender breakdown, 2024 saw three trans women publish fiction titles, as well as two gender diverse writers. Cisgender women still dominate in this space, though they shifted slightly from 74% in 2023 to 70% of published works in 2024. Cisgender men are the next biggest category at 22%, down slightly on 2023, when they held 24%.

Fiction is still dominated by Pākehā writers, though they did reduce in percentage from 82% in 2023 to 74% in 2024. Māori and Asian fiction authors increased in both number and percentage compared to 2023, whereas Pasifika authors made no notable change. The number of total authors also increased.

There was a notable change in the gender and ethnic breakdowns of published poets, while the title count remained steady – 58 titles by 57 authors. A more even split of cisgender men and women is apparent, with one trans man and one gender non-conforming writer in the numbers. In ethnicity, we see a rise in the number and percentage of Māori and Pasifika poets, while Asian poets, while increasing in number, stayed relatively steady percentage-wise.

The non-fiction area is where the most significant shift can be observed, though this category has fewer titles, 20 by 20 authors, so small changes can affect the data acutely. In 2023, cisgender men held the largest percentage of titles at 60%, while cisgender women held 33% – it was the only category where men held the highest percentage. In 2024, this position was handed over to cisgender women, now holding 55% of titles and cisgender men only 45%.

Only Pākehā and Māori authors were recorded in the category in 2024. The number and percentage of Māori writers rose compared to 2023, but we lost a Pasifika presence. Pākehā maintained their 80% share of the titles authored.

My personal goal in conducting this research is to highlight the notable gaps and encourage publishers, big and small, to try to provide more representation for underserved communities. If you’re a reader who wants to see a more diverse literary landscape in Aotearoa, the best thing you can do is buy diverse books. In this case, not only are you usually supporting independent publishers (often belonging to minority communities, too), you are also helping to show commercial publishers that these are authors and stories worth investing in.

The internal world of book publishing in Aotearoa is a mystery to most, but for those of us in the industry, there are many widely accepted facts of who and what gets published. It’s easy to imagine that it’s us, the publishing professionals, who dictate what gets published – while partially true, we are also at the whims of the market and what’s selling. But is “what’s selling” an excuse to play comfortably, to get out of the tricky and laborious work of changing industry expectations?

This work builds on the 2023 edition published on my Substack, but originally started with Janis Freegard, who has sporadically documented the demographics of what’s published in Aotearoa on her blog from as early as 2013. This research is a continuation and expansion directly inspired by her previous breakdowns and uses similar methods.

The majority of the data used is drawn from the yearly compilation of titles from the ‘Aotearoa New Zealand’ (Moffat et al.) article in Literature, Critique and Empire Today. This was previously available by paying a fee to Sage Journals, but the most recent iteration has been made accessible for free. While it is the most comprehensive yearly breakdown of books published in Aotearoa, there are undoubtedly a few titles that will be missed.

The data I have selected to display here is pulled from the poetry, fiction, letters and auto/biography and non-fiction sections of the article, combining the latter three into a general non-fiction category. This selection notably omits four titles in drama, all published by Playmarket’s Tala imprint and penned by Pasifika playwrights. Non-fiction in this instance does not include illustrated non-fiction titles. Also omitted are anthologies due to the nature of multiple editors and multiple contributors skewing the data.

To identify the gender and ethnic backgrounds of authors, I have searched for information shared online. If there is consistent use of specific pronouns, I have assigned the gender commonly associated with those pronouns. For authors using non-gendered pronouns, I have assigned them as ‘gender diverse’, and for trans authors, I have only noted this if they explicitly identify as such.

Through my own publishing work and as editor for bad apple, the online Aotearoa LGBTQIA+ journal, I have published hundreds of queer writers and feel confident I can identify many who openly identify as trans or gender diverse. Some likely individuals do not share their identities publicly, however, and so I have simply done my best with the information available.

Regarding ethnic identities, I have broken down the groups into broad categories aligned with the 2023 New Zealand Census data. These are New Zealand European/Pākehā, Māori, Pacific peoples (Pasifika), Asian and Middle Eastern, Latin American and African. As with gender, I conducted online searches to find information, and if I found no iwi identification or statement of other ethnic background, I have assumed the author is Pākehā.

Authors who are both Pākehā and Māori have only been counted in the Māori category. If an author has noted a mixed ethnic background, Asian and Pasifika, for example, they have been counted once in each category. I understand this may be contentious, but I think it gives the most accurate representation of which minority ethnic groups are represented.