2009 US ebook sales up 176.6%

[pdurrant]

http://www.publishers.org/main/Press...lionin2009.htm

http://www.publishers.org/main/Press...12009Final.pdf

Overall, book sales were down by 1.8% or $400 million. Most categories had the usual up/down of less than 5% movement that's been common over the past few years.

There were two exceptions. One was K-12 education, down by 13.8%, or $800 million. The other was ebooks, up 176.6% or $200 million.

So - in the worst recession for 70 years, book sales in the US overall are down less than 2%, and that's pretty much all attributable to lower education spending on text books.

Hmm... what I don't see is the loss of $3 billion per quarter that was so much publicised in January

Note that figures published earlier showed that ebooks sales in 2010 look set to continue increasing rapidly.

Note also that the /average/ yearly increase over the past seven years have been over 70%. And that's not distorted by very high rates in the early years. The 2009 increase is the largest recorded, both in dollars and percentage.

It seems extremely plausible to say that ebook will be bringing in more money than mass market paperbacks within four years. Unless, of course, publishers kill the rise of the ebook with silly policies and excessive DRM...