Thursday, July 22, 2010

E-Book Milestone

An important landmark in the e-book revolution has just been passed, with Amazon announcing that for the first time sales of digital books have outstripped US sales of hardbacks on its website.

David Teather in The Guardian says :
Amazon claims to have sold 143 digital books for its e-reader, the Kindle, for every 100 hardback books over the past three months. The pace of change is also accelerating. Amazon said that in the most recent four weeks, the rate reached 180 ebooks for every 100 hardbacks sold. Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, said sales of the Kindle and ebooks had reached a "tipping point", with five authors including Steig Larsson, the writer of Girl with a Dragon Tattoo, and Stephenie Meyer, who penned the Twilight series, each selling more than 500,000 digital books. Earlier this month, Hachette said that James Patterson had sold 1.1m ebooks to date.
But there's good news for lovers of the physical book, he says, apparently sales of hardbacks are up 22% this year in the US.

Elsewhere, David Carnon looks at what Amazon aren't telling us about the surge in e-book buying, and  Larry Dignan reckons it is the introduction of the i-Pad (and not the Kindle) that is driving sales.

3 comments:

Carmen Thong said...

Extremely hesitant to let the world part with paperbacks.

Unknown said...

I'm apprehensive of e-books. iPads and Kindle look very good, but they don't feel right, smell right, turning pages is not the same.

I've been told I have to keep pace with the times, but have resisted so far. I mean to continue to resist till such time when buying books would be unaffordable and e-book readers the only option.

Agent Nathan Bransford offers some interesting opinions here, and I find No. 3 most comforting:
http://tinyurl.com/29tdtww

Linguitikus said...

I have had my Kindle for three years. I must say that although I do, I still read paperbacks/ hardbacks, and I still check out books from the library. What Kindle has done for me is: make me read more!!! The Kindle allows you to have sample readings of some books, and if I don't feel like buying, I check it out from the library. I don't miss reading a few pages out of a book in a bookstore anymore when I can do it at home.