[queentess]

2. E-book sales are still relatively small. The media hype has outstripped the reality. According to a study by BISG, e-book sales for the fourth quarter of 2010 were only 7 percent of all book purchases. That’s up from 2 percent in 2009 and represents dramatic growth. But this is still a long way from “50 percent by 2014.”

Didn't Amazon just say they were selling more ebooks than pbooks (in the U.S.)? I'm not sure how that translates to 7% of all book purchases, unless he's talking world-wide and including used books sales? I think ebooks are a pretty healthy percentage of the new book market. Though the recent Amazon numbers could be a spike due to all the Kindles gifted for the holidays.

3. The music industry hasn’t even reached this benchmark yet. Apple launched the first iPod in the fall of 2001. Almost ten years later, digital music sales are still only 46 percent of the overall music market. Yet, if you read the press, you would think CD sales died years ago. Certainly, the music industry has gone through enormous disruption, but digital music has not yet reached half of all music sales.

I'm not sure this is a comparable market. Many audiophiles prefer vinyl or want the enclosures that come with cds. I'm not really part of this market though, as my husband and I have XM Radio, which fits all our needs. We don't often buy music.

4. Readers are more attached to print books. Music has always been an audible experience. It doesn’t matter if the device generating the sound waves is a CD player or an iPod. For everyone but audiophiles, the experience is the same. This is not true of books. Holding the book and flipping through the pages is a cherished part of the reading experience for many readers. (Even e-readers try to replicate the page-turning experience.) So expect readers to embrace e-books more slowly that music lovers have embraced digital music.

Eh... this might have some traction, though it doesn't apply to me. I think if we looked at ebook sales spread across types of books we'd see a clear trend. Fiction will have a much stronger hold on ebooks than nonfiction or technical books, and there will continue to be a market for special editions.