Amazing rise of eBook sales in 2011 (USA)

[Greg Anos]

I remember a thread back in 2009, when ebook sales had hit 3% of total sales. Many people were saying that it was just a fringe market, going nowhere. 3 years later, it's 25% of all book sales and still growing...It'll probably invert in the next 3 years (more e-book sales than P-book sales).

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Depends on the market segment. In some segments, ebook growth is mostly cannibalization. In others, it is mostly new readers going straight to ebooks (YA, for example). And in yet others, ebooks have close to zero presence.

All in all, though, most of the BPHs are reporting declining print revenues and booming ebook revenue *overall*. Individual subsidiaries and national markets will vary.

I would agree that younger readers with their iPads (or other tablets) takes to e-books like gnats to swamps, in a few years time YA titles might even go straight to digital distribution. It will be interesting to see how publishers will react to that when they can compare new profit figures to traditional publishing figures. In today's world it is still a mish mash.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Depends on the market segment. In some segments, ebook growth is mostly cannibalization. In others, it is mostly new readers going straight to ebooks (YA, for example). And in yet others, ebooks have close to zero presence.

All in all, though, most of the BPHs are reporting declining print revenues and booming ebook revenue *overall*. Individual subsidiaries and national markets will vary.

Jerry Pournelle reports that he is now making more on ebook sales than he was on dead tree sales. Of course, he hasn't produced a ton of new books in recent years, but he has a pretty big backlist. I always thought that ebooks was a god send for writers with name recognition who have a good sized backlist.

[carpetmojo]

I wonder if there's any direct correlation between increased number of ebook sales, and increased number of ereader device sales ?
For example, ebook sales up 30%, ereader sales up same, or perhaps a steady % of that.
It might show each new reader sold "consumes" a steady average figure of ebooks.

That might be quite an eye-opener, and of interest to the "market strategists", if there was any link.......
More specifically, it could perhaps tempt device suppliers, who also sell ebooks, to check their own stat's and try planning budgets accordingly ?

[ Ideally, but prob'ly too difficult, would also be a breakdown into pure ereaders, and other types of devices, like pads etc...]