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Tuesday, August 7, 2012

EBooks overtake hardback and paperback combined

Kindle ebook sales have overtaken Amazon print sales, says book seller


For every 100 hardback and paperback books Amazon sells on its UK site, 114 ebooks are downloaded.

Shiv Malik in The Guardian reports that Amazon.co.uk has said that sales of its Kindle ebooks are now outstripping its sales of printed books.

Underlining the speed of change in the publishing industry, Amazon said that two years after introducing the Kindle, customers are now buying more ebooks than all hardcovers and paperbacks combined. According to unaudited figures released by the company on Monday, since the start of 2012, for every 100 hardback and paperback book sold on its site, customers downloaded 114 ebooks.

Amazon said the figures included sales of printed books which did not have Kindle editions, but excluded free ebooks.  And, while the phenomenal sales of Fifty Shades of You-Know-What are recognized as a significant factor in the figures, Amazon declares that this huge surge in Kindle sales and eBook sales hails a "Renaissance in reading."

Which can't be anything less than good for authors -- and for publishers.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Ebooks are the future. I agree that it is a great opportunity for authors and publishers. We also talk about the benefits of ebooks on our blog: http://ronntorossian.com/ronn-torossian-reveals-three-reasons-to-publish-an-ebook/