Dutch e-book sales rose by more than 60% in 2013

[Katsunami]

Original Article: Nederlandse e-bookverkoop stijgt met ruim 60 procent in 2013

Translation:

In 2013, 60% more e-books were sold as compared to the year before. In total 1.95 million e-books were sold in 2013, compared to 1.2 million in 2012. Boekblad reported that at this moment, e-books are generating about 3.2% of all revenue.

According to Mathijs Suidman, manager Digital Media of Centraal Boekhuis, which distributes almost all Dutch books, the figure is so low because e-books cost less on average. "If you'd look to the number of books sold, they'd make up about 4.6% of the A book market."

Still, the growth is disappointing to him. "I expected that this amount would grow faster - partly because of my expectation that libraries would have started to loan e-books already, beginning last October," says Suidman.

It looks like the market share of e-books is not rising very fast. Figures published earlier by NUTech showed that 4.1% of book revenue was generated by e-books in May 2013.

More than one in five books that are ordered online is digital, says Suidman. The number of e-books on offer rose from 19.230 titles to 28.319. Centraal Boekhuis offers over 80.000 different physical books.

[Katsunami]

Personally, I think the Dutch book industry would be shocked to see how many e-books they are NOT selling: all English e-books that are either not available in Dutch stores, or are over-the-top expensive compared to almost any store in an English-speaking country you care to buy in.

Everybody I know who has an e-reader reads English books exclusively, and buys them anywhere apart from the Netherlands. My sole exception is one of my aunts, as she doesn't know English.

So yes, the sales of e-books in Dutch may be low, and the sales in Dutch e-book stores may be low too, but I would not be surprised if e-books have a MUCH bigger market share than expected if English books and books not bought in The Netherlands would be counted as well; but that's very hard to check, obviously.

[forsooth]

Dutch stubborn.

[pdurrant]

It sound to me like the Dutch ebook market is about to take off.

[ijdod]

I'm surpised by their claim they're cheaper. One of the major complaints I have heard against adoption of e-books, is their price. They're often priced at hardcover prices, long after a cheap mass-market paperback is available. This does not entice people to go out and buy them...

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by ijdod

I'm surpised by their claim they're cheaper. One of the major complaints I have heard against adoption of e-books, is their price. They're often priced at hardcover prices, long after a cheap mass-market paperback is available. This does not entice people to go out and buy them...

It's partly what Katsunami said (I also only know people who buy the English books, mostly at Amazon), and partly because of the VAT. "Ebooks are cheaper!" Yes. They are (around 80%), if you take the price without VAT. Add 21% instead of 6% and you get almost the same price. (and I've seen ebooks which were more expensive than their paper version) Combined with the fact that there are almost no older books, and the fact that a few larger publishers still refuse to go electronic, and you have an environment where people will go elsewhere for their electronic books.

Drop the VAT back to the normal VAT for books and get those lagging larger publishers to start publishing and get most of those 80.000 books available and you'll see a large increase in sales.