January 2010 US ebook sales up 261.2%

[pdurrant]

http://news.shelf-awareness.com/mv/a...1.html#3856045

Based on book sales reported by 85 publishers to the Association of American Publishers.

Ebook sales: $31.9 million, up 261.2%

Interesting highlights from the rest of the figures:

Adult hardback fiction: $55.6 million, down 8.1%
Adult paperback fiction: $103.2 million, up 0.8%
Adult mass masket fiction: $56 million, down 0.5%

Main losers over the year were religious books, children/YA paperback, professional and scholarly, and children's hardcover.


Now, it seems to me that this means that publishers should (1) take ebooks really seriously and (2) stop claiming large losses due to piracy.

But I rather doubt that they will.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now, it seems to me that this means that publishers should (1) take ebooks really seriously and (2) stop claiming large losses due to piracy.

"profits are up" and "a lot of money has been lost due to piracy" are not contradictory statements, and are probably both true.

[Ben Thornton]

This is interesting - although the numbers don't add up. The 814.9$M figure for the total doesn't tally with the 905.1$M total for the table (unless I've missed something?) In any case the ebooks increase is encouraging.

The 42% in Higher Education surprised me, so I looked into what percentage of the book market this was. This suggests 2.2$B total for January 2009 from the census bureau, so perhaps the above data is about a third of the market.

Several points about this interested me:
- why is January such a good month? isn't it dead after Christmas? are they all diet books?
- the market has been almost flat for the best part of 10 years
- the Amazon growth is scary!

[Ben Thornton]

Poking about a bit more, the data here has the $31.9M figure, suggesting that it's a wholesale revenue figure - meaning that the value for January is likely to be more like $60M. Perhaps the 900$M is a wholesale compared to 2.2$B retail?

Notable points about this data:
- January was more than half of Q409, suggesting that the sharp growth has not stopped yet
- there's a very marked contrast between the explosive growth of these graphs, and the US census data for the last 10 years on book sales (that looks flat)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

"profits are up" and "a lot of money has been lost due to piracy" are not contradictory statements, and are probably both true.

Profits are neither here nor there - we're looking at revenue here, not profits.

US book revenues year to year are up and down with the economy and do not have a large growth rate - because books are a mature, saturated, market.

From the US Census Bureau figures compiled by Morris Rosenthal

http://www.fonerbooks.com/booksale.htm

US book sales (according to the US Census Bureau) have been around $16-$17 billion a year since 2003. To suggest that ebook piracy could have cost the industry $2.8 billion dollars in lost sales *every three months* is ridiculous

http://www.attributor.com/blog/book-piracy-costs-study/

[Ben Thornton]

That's the same thing I linked to two posts up.

Anyhow, you're right that the ebook sales haven't altered the paper book sales over the last 10 years.

What's interesting is whether the overall market will get smaller (piracy), stay the same, or grow due to ebook sales taking off. My bet goes on the latter, as anecdotal evidence suggests that the ease of using ebooks, and the convenience of buying them (and reading straight away) on line, increases the number purchased.

[fugazied]

Those figures are pretty incredible.

I guess this massive bump is largely due to the thousands of new e-reader owners who received/bought a device for christmas and bought more books in January.

It also demonstrates how many of these sales are to new customers, ie. people who didn't read for a while because of the inconvenience or carrying hardcovers everywhere or young people who carry electronic devices but not books. It should be a slap in the face for publishers to get their act together but I doubt it will hurry things up much.

[lilac_jive]

I'm not suprised YA went down, pretty much everyone who wanted to read Twilight has read it already and that accounted for HUGE increases in YA sales. So compared to previously, it's down, but it's a stronger market than before that.

[Ravensknight]

All I know is that I spent all my Christmas money and Birthday money on ebooks.

[GeoffC]

and how many of these books were pre-loaded onto readers ?

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Ebook sales: $31.9 million, up 261.2%

OK, so in theory ebook sales went from ~$12m in January 2008 to $32m in January 2009. In the interim, book sales overall dropped 0.7%, or $6 million, and stores open at least 1 year saw revenues drop by 1.9%.

It's difficult to draw any definitive conclusions though, since book sales will obviously be influenced by numerous factors, including bookstore closures and changes in the broader economic environment.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Now, it seems to me that this means that publishers should (1) take ebooks really seriously and (2) stop claiming large losses due to piracy.

If we take January to be a typical month, ebooks are still less than 4% of the market in the US, compared to 1.4% last year. It's so small that they don't break down ebook sales by category yet. If ebooks continue to grow by around 2.5% per year, it could take 18 years for ebooks to capture 50% of the market.

While I concur that ebooks are likely to continue to grow (and faster than in 2009): Given all the attention and changes in the industry lately, and keeping in mind its small percentage of revenues, it is slightly ridiculous to suggest that publishers are "not taking ebooks seriously."

Also, while I concur that $3 billion per quarter in losses due to piracy is unlikely, nothing in these specific figures or its methodology has anything to do with piracy. Ergo we can't draw any conclusions about piracy, or its effect on sales, based solely on the AAP's figures.

[Blue Tyson]

Unlikely? It is just as likely that you are from Krypton and don't like green rocks.

The conclusion we can draw is that they are completely full of crap when they claim such. If it didn't exist, the industry would be 12 billion larger? A hell of a lot of retrograde aviating porcines would have to be buying books for that to ever happen.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

OK, so in theory ebook sales went from ~$12m in January 2008 to $32m in January 2009. In the interim, book sales overall dropped 0.7%, or $6 million, and stores open at least 1 year saw revenues drop by 1.9%.

It's difficult to draw any definitive conclusions though, since book sales will obviously be influenced by numerous factors, including bookstore closures and changes in the broader economic environment.



If we take January to be a typical month, ebooks are still less than 4% of the market in the US, compared to 1.4% last year. It's so small that they don't break down ebook sales by category yet. If ebooks continue to grow by around 2.5% per year, it could take 18 years for ebooks to capture 50% of the market.

While I concur that ebooks are likely to continue to grow (and faster than in 2009): Given all the attention and changes in the industry lately, and keeping in mind its small percentage of revenues, it is slightly ridiculous to suggest that publishers are "not taking ebooks seriously."

Also, while I concur that $3 billion per quarter in losses due to piracy is unlikely, nothing in these specific figures or its methodology has anything to do with piracy. Ergo we can't draw any conclusions about piracy, or its effect on sales, based solely on the AAP's figures.

I'm sorry, but your post is a numeric mess. Let's start from the top.

E-book sale were up 261% from 2008 to 2009. If they went up another 261% from 2009 to 2010, they would increase their market share from 4% to 10.5%. (Assuming the paper market remains flat. Looking over the past 10 years, this is not an unreasonable assumption.) One more year at 261% growth would put e-books at 27.5% of the market.

Am I saying the growth rate will remain this high. I have no idea. But e-books are in a explosive growth curve and are rapidly reaching the total volume to make this curve meaningful to the entire business.

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by Kali Yuga

If ebooks continue to grow by around 2.5% per year, it could take 18 years for ebooks to capture 50% of the market.

But the growth isn't linear, as has been pointed out. What is happenening is made clear by some pictures:

Amazon vs. bricks and mortar:


eBook wholesale sales:


People are moving to on-line purchase of paper books, and e-book growth is explosive - which is natural in that context. It could take 18 years for e-books to capture 50% of the market, but the slow linear growth that you're suggesting looks unlikely.

I think that we're seeing explosive growth to a plateau - the $64million question is: where is the plateau? Put another way, what percentage of reading is likely to move to a reader any time soon?

[GeoffC]

that last graph is wholesale figures....