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In 2005, the last year for which full annual statistics are available, digital copies of books brought in a measly $12 million. That's less than 0.5% of the $25 billion generated by the industry that year, according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
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You know, I've seen this sort of (maybe this exact) statistic before, and it occurs to me that it may not be taking into account the difference in availability between e & p books.
I mean, $25 billion is a lot, and $12 million isn't much comparatively, but what is the ratio of available p-titles to e-titles? If the available number of e-titles is only roughly .5% of the number of p-titles, then having only .5% of the revenue is rather a different matter than if 50% of the titles are available electronically, with only .5% of the revenue to show for it.
And the number is further fragmented by other minor details. Such as paper revenue on books that are Public Domain, and therefore freely available electronically. No e-revenue there, but there would be p-revenue. Of course the fact that folks are still buying the paper versions may be a counter point, but then you'd have to consider how many folks were just downloading them to get a feel for actual usage.
Usage isn't what the pubs care about, though, is it? Just revenue. Oh well, they
are in business to make money after all.
Then there's e-Babel: If I want a book, and it's only available electronically in a format that my reader won't handle (and encrypted, so I can't convert it), then I'm probably going to go with the paper version. That'd be a direct transfer of revenue to the p side that would otherwise be counted on the e side.
I think that these sorts of statistics may be misinforming the decision makers to some extent, particularly in light of the frequency we see the statistics come up in pieces like this. When they keep saying they won't mess with e-books because they only represent a half a percent of the industry revenue, clearly it's figuring in their thinking. Unfortunately, the countering evidence isn't something that can be summed up in a single sentence (look how long it took me just to
explain the
concept!), so it doesn't really get considered.
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"Eighty-six percent of all statistics are made up on the spot."
-- A Statistician