eBook Sales Increase Nearly 116% In January, Paperback Sales Plunge Nearly 31%

In January's Association of American Publishers (AAP) report, they revealed that eBook net sales went from last year's 32.4 million dollars to 69.9 million dollars, increasing by 115.8 percent.

The report also displayed that adult mass market paperback book sales had plummeted almost 31 percent when compared to last year's sales, and hardcover books dropped by 11 percent.

Overall book sales have dropped in the past year, though not by very much. Last January, books sold 821.5 million dollars, as opposed to this January's 805.7 million dollars, resulting in a 1.9 percent decrease.

To read the full report, click here.

Comments

[iwritereadrate]

12:23 PM on 04/11/2011

Of course this is going to happen. As the proliferation of ebook reading devices (of all kinds) continues to grow the simplicity and ease of access to new eliterature will increase sales of ebooks. It'll be interesting to see whether there is a proportional, or disproportional change to the physical book sales numbers over the coming months and years.

Interestingly, perhaps, is an article I read recently that the ebook uptake is escalating in the US and UK, but is somewhat more sluggish in other countries - will also be interesting to see if this continues or the US/UK pattern starts to happen elsewhere as well.

Best regards

Adam Charles
www.iWriteReadRate.com

[elijahjoon]

03:07 PM on 04/07/2011

Agree with "OccamsButterknife" below. I love ebooks and my books are published through the Kindle and all... but paperbacks and the print publishing in its entirety are in no danger.
They'll be here to stay.

[sean6886]

01:19 AM on 03/22/2011

I totally get the joy of the smell and touch of a new book, but my goal was to become as much of a minimalist as I could and part of that was purchasing the Kindle.
Sure, I could've checked out the book from a library or traded it back in to the bookstore for credit on other book purchases, but I do like to revisit books and the Kindle allows me tobdo that.

[James Roswell Quinn]

10:12 PM on 03/21/2011

My book, THE LOVE-BASED LEADER, has sold over 3,500 soft-cover at $19.95 and about 2,500 eBooks at $14.95. I am self-published and use POD. To me, having the ability to sell both types of books makes sense. I am a keynote speaker and leadership trainer. People in my courses, seminars, keynotes prefer the printed version of the book ... and ALWAYS want them autographed. Those in my webinars and tele-seminars prefer the eBooks at first, but many come back later for the printed version. In general, people are much more excited about getting a printed book than an eBook.

[Read AloudDad]

08:25 PM on 03/21/2011

I still love reading my traditional books to my twins... they enjoy them too!

The best choice of illustrated books for reading aloud is still available in the traditional book formats.

Read Aloud Dad

www.ReadAloudDad.com

[Occams Breadknife]

04:09 PM on 03/21/2011

So ebooks are 70 million of an 800 million dollar book market. When are print books going away again? Not for some time.

It is interesting to see how much many reports ignore any other reason for sales dropping, and implies that is just because of ebooks. It will be interesting to see things if and when the economy picks up again.

[Jakesmom]

11:03 PM on 03/19/2011

This is an argument that I agree is similar to the Apple versus PC mode. I bought my nook as a treat for myself with my income tax refund. I still read hardcover books, too. I buy books for my nook and have spent serious money since doing so. Believe me, many authors are benefiting from my purchase. Free Fridays has exposed me to many other authors that I normally wouldn't have even encountered.

Disposable? Yes, you could say that. But they are saved on my laptop, too, and I have purchased books that I would never consider disposable, such as Unbroken and Hellhounds on his Trail. I bought it originally because to carry a 700+ page book on the trolley was just too daunting for me.

When wouldn't I buy a book on my nook? Honestly, if I'm going to a book fair, such as the L.A.Times Festival of Books, I'd bring my nook and buy books for the authors to sign. For me, that's a huge benefit that I would never give up. But being able to have a number of books at my disposal, or being able to read a bigger font, or being able to buy something without heading to the bookstore are huge benefits for me, especially when I'm paying $4.17 for gas, or have just given money to my kid for whatever reason.

To each his own, and enjoy your reading adventure, no matter the format.

[Eileenla]

09:59 AM on 03/19/2011

ebooks enable us to update our texts quickly, which honors the fact that as our understanding changes, so too can our written texts. One challenge we're still facing, as our species shifts from the print age to the digital age, is the longstanding belief that if someone committed a story to a permanent surface it must be the "immutable truth." That belief originated with illiterate peasants who marveled at every scholar's capacity to repeat verbatum formerly oral stories that used to change with every retelling. Their amazement eventually morphed into the worship of The Word," which has, for two thousand years now, inhibited human advancement. (Bible literalism, anyone?)

When more of us acknowledge that the information we've gathered about this world can and does change as we ourselves mature and our collective understanding of life advances, perhaps our mindless worship of written artifacts will diminish and we'll learn to trust ourselves in the here and now instead of accepting without question that what people in the past thought was true IS the absolute truth, and that there is nothing new left to learn or add to our collection of human beliefs and understandings.

[iwritereadrate]

09:00 AM on 03/19/2011

Hi there. Interesting post, it's really exciting and interesting to see that eBook uptake seems to be accelerating. I read an interesting post about global stats of eBook sales growth on The Futurebooks website - it seems that this trend is only happening in the USA and UK, other countries are a little less enthusiastic about the potential eLiterature offers both writers and readers.

All the best
Adam
www.iWriteReadRate.com

[mpls mas macho]

06:24 PM on 03/18/2011

Not explained in the article is that mass market pbs are typically the format for James Patterson, John Grisham, Janet Evanovich, etc. etc. type books - mysteries and romance, supermarket books (not that there is anything wrong that). This type of book has always been very disposable - most end up at a used bookstore, thrift store, or garbage can. As much as HP likes to endlessly promote the idea of the death the book, this article actually demonstrates that e-books are more of a phenomena akin to audio books than anything truly revolutionary.

[BlackJAC]

09:21 PM on 03/18/2011

E-books seem to be the next step up from that: get it for $2, read it on the flight, delete it once you've landed, and only your credit card company knows you had it in the first place.

[Occams Breadknife]

04:11 PM on 03/21/2011

Exactly correct in my view as well.

[StoutHouse]

10:02 AM on 03/18/2011

My take? Books and e-books will peacefully coexist, no matter how ardently print lovers sniff and fondle their books, and no matter how loudly digital progressives and Amazon shills bellow like mad prophets, exhorting us all to see the coming paradigm shift. E-book evangelists tend to speak in pronouncements, accuse print readers of clinging nostalgically to the past. So self-assured, these people. Meanwhile, print is still king, and will be for a long time. While impressive, factor out $0.99 to $2.99 Kindle bestsellers and the numbers aren't as impressive as the book-futurists would have you believe -- although the digital market will absolutely continue to grow.

[Eyal Nevo]

01:55 PM on 03/18/2011

he; if what you wrote here was on paper, you will have been forced to eat it a year from now.

[StoutHouse]

03:37 PM on 03/18/2011

Charming. What part do you disagree with, and why?

[BlackJAC]

05:02 PM on 03/18/2011

And yet you don't need several hundred dollars' worth of electronics and a steady supply of electricity to write something on paper.

[BlackJAC]

05:18 PM on 03/18/2011

E-books will be for those people who just want some fast, cheap entertainment, or for situations where the weight and size of hardcopy would be prohibitive.  Hardcopy will be for those people who enjoy permanence.

[mpls mas macho]

06:39 PM on 03/18/2011

Allow me to F&F you. A good, full bookshelf is like a photo album of where your mind has been (sorry for the cheesiness, the unending barrage of stories like this one drives me up the wall).

[Muttley88]

09:05 AM on 03/18/2011

It's called "Kindle" because the idea is to KINDLE a BONFIRE! Burn those real books! After all, books can carry dangerous ideas! Once it's all electronic the powers that be will be able to introduce little changes...Tiny increments at first, then eventually sweeping revisions... Bit by bit they will IMPROVE the literature of the past... making it easier... safer... BETTER FOR US ALL!

[mpls mas macho]

06:33 PM on 03/18/2011

“Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings”- Heinrich Heine

[CabCurious]

08:49 AM on 03/18/2011

The real game-charger will be when the hard-copy market vanishes for k-12 and college.

When your average young chapter-book reader is using e-readers and finding it more engaging to read that way, that's when we'll have crossed the Rubicon with the tradition pulp paper format. That day isn't here just yet, but it's not too far off.

My understanding is that k-12 + college make up an extremely massive portion of the publishing market, in spite of what adult literary types want to believe.

[BlackJAC]

05:07 PM on 03/18/2011

Ever wonder where the term "pulp fiction" came from?  It's due to the rough pulpy paper used to print fast, cheap & written that way stories intended solely for short-term profit.  E-books seem to be the heir to that throne, at least the self-published ones if J.A. Konrath's perpetual bragging about how much money he rakes in from them are any indicator.

[KalNJ]

07:11 AM on 03/18/2011

What amazes me about the whole eBook market is how the publishers mishandle this technology. It's almost as if they looked at what the music industry did and said "man, that's a good idea".

Didn't work out to well for them yet the publishing industry is making the same mistakes almost 1:1.