The March of the E-books

[stonetools]

Via Publishers Weekly:

E-books accounted for 7% of consumer spending on books in 2011 and 14% of units purchased, according to the most recent data from Bowker Market Research. In 2010, e-books had a 2% share of dollars and a 4% share of units. The wide discrepancy between unit and spending gains reflects the lower price e-books have compared to print formats, especially hardcover. The increase in spending on e-books came largely at the expense of hardcover, with the market share for hardcovers falling from 42% in 2010 to 39% last year. In 2009, hardcovers held a 46% share of spending. Unit sales of hardcovers took a slightly steeper drop last year, falling from 34% of titles sold to 29%. Trade paperback fared better, with the Bowker data showing that after holding steady at 36% of spending in 2009 and 2010, trade paperback accounted for 37% of spending last year despite a dip in its share of units. The mass market paperback segment has had a steady decline in units and dollars between 2009 and 2011, with units falling from 18% in 2010 to 14% in 2011; its share of spending fell last year

LINK

[tubemonkey]

Great news. I bet publishers are ecstatic.

[charmian]

Seems like the predictions of the MMPB's extinction are coming true. From what I've heard, they've mostly died in Britain.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by charmian

Seems like the predictions of the MMPB's extinction are coming true. From what I've heard, they've mostly died in Britain.

Links? Refs?

[abookreader]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Links? Refs?

I don't know about Britain but

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat...ecember_b47625

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by charmian

Seems like the predictions of the MMPB's extinction are coming true. From what I've heard, they've mostly died in Britain.

Purely anecdotal but not according to what I see selling in bookstores and the contents of the in-store shelves...

[Canuck_in_Japan]

Originally Posted by elcreative

Purely anecdotal but not according to what I see selling in bookstores and the contents of the in-store shelves...

Yes but what else are they going to sell? You're not going to fill a whole bookstore with hardbacks and a B&M store can't really sell e-books. Just because they're there doesn't mean that their sales haven't gone down-it just takes a long time to die.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by abookreader

I don't know about Britain but

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat...ecember_b47625

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by Canuck_in_Japan

Yes but what else are they going to sell? You're not going to fill a whole bookstore with hardbacks and a B&M store can't really sell e-books. Just because they're there doesn't mean that their sales haven't gone down-it just takes a long time to die.

The stores I've run and worked for are a little more pragmatic than that... if MMPB sales were dying that drastically then they'd be selling other things... there's still a large chunk of the overall retail decline that is due to the brilliant state of the world economy rather than imminent death...

[Cdesja5]

From the perspective of the CEO and owner of Canada's largest bookstore company:
Thanks to taming for posting this originally...

Audio interview with Heather Reisman of Chapters-Indigo

Look at the far right, toward the bottom: http://www.cbc.ca/books/index.html

This interview is long, but worth listening to if you want a perspective from the CEO of a Big Box chain of bookstores. Reisman runs Chapters-Indigo in Canada, but I'm guessing that what she has to say applies to other chains in other countries.
Toward the end there is a discussion of the decision to sell Kobo to Raskuten.

Original thread:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=178882

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by charmian

Seems like the predictions of the MMPB's extinction are coming true.

Seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy, as publishers try to delibertately kill of the cheaper MMBP in favour of the more expensive trade edition.

[stonetools]

Three things stand out:


1. Even with agency pricing, hardcover sales still lost share vs ebooks
2. Again with even with agency pricing, ebook prices in general did not increase.
3. The ebook share of the book market more than tripled.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by stonetools

2. Again with even with agency pricing, ebook prices in general did not increase.

How do you figure this?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by stonetools

2. Again with even with agency pricing, ebook prices in general did not increase.

They sure did increase in price. Plus, no discounting and no sales kept the prices higher as well. Whoever things that prices did not go up is very wrong.

[stonetools]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

How do you figure this?

What I meant is that the average price of ebooks didn't go up. Agency priced books did increase.
Ebooks went from 2% of the market (and 4% of sales to 7% of of the market (and 14% of sales). That means that the average unit price apparently didn't increase. Now I am not a statistician, so I could be wrong on this.