Sales of e-books skyrocketed in 2011

Sales of e-books more than doubled in 2011 to bring in some $2.07 billion for the US publishing industry, a survey showed.

The data from the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group said e-books grew from $869 million in 2010. Last year, e-books accounted for some six per cent of overall publishing revenues.

The number of e-books also doubled to 388 million, and represented 15.5 per cent of total books sold in the "trade sector," meaning fiction and non-fiction for adults and children.

Still, e-books have not overtaken the traditional hardcover or paperback, which represented the bulk of publishers` net revenue at $11.1 billion for 2011.

The biggest gains for e-books came in adult fiction, where it accounted for 30 per cent of revenues. That was up 117 percent and produced $1.27 billion in revenues last year, the report said.

Overall sales for the publishing industry managed a slight increase for the year of 0.5 per cent at $13.97 billion.

And despite the bankruptcy of the big bookseller Borders, which closed 500 stores, brick-and-mortar retail remained the top sales channel with $8.59 billion in sales.

BdST 2051 HRS, JUL 22, 2012

Edited by:
Sabbin Hasan, ICT Editor