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E-book sales rocket up at Random House, Penguin, S&S and elsewhere
August 31, 2008 | 8:47 am
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By David Rothman
“Last week Random House announced sales for e-books were already more than double the total for 2007. The trade body, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) estimates that sales of e-books in March 2008 were 58.9% higher than in March 2007.” – The Times in the U.K.
The TeleRead take: This is hardly an isolated phenomenon. Also see recent IDPF stats, from which I picked up this image.The Times further reports:
“In the first four months of this year Penguin’s sales of e-books surpassed all those made in 2007. So far, [chairman and chief executive] John Makinson said, the company had found little difference between the bestselling titles sold in paper form or as downloads. Price had not affected sales, he said. Penguin’s bestselling e-books generally cost as much to download as they do in print…
“Simon & Schuster recently announced that by June this year sales of e-books had exceeded 2007′s total. The company expects revenue in the format to double for the full year…
“The [e-book] trade body, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) estimates that sales of e-books in March 2008 were 58.9% higher than in March 2007.”
At the same time, keep in mind that e-book sales are just a speck of those for the book industry as a whole. They’d be higher without eBabel and DRM, of course. Lower prices would also help despite Penguin’s belief that “price has not affected sales.” I base this opinion on the repeated pleas of TeleBlog readers for reasonable prices.
Related: Paul Biba‘s just-made post: E-book sales still tiny in U.K.—but will Kindle, Sony Reader help change the game and affect p-book market?, Chris Meadows‘s Open Letter to Random House
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Comments:
>>>Price had not affected sales, he said. Penguin’s bestselling e-books generally cost as much to download as they do in print…
See, there’s the bad news. They’ll NEVER want to cut prices to a reasonable level now. And you can bet they’ll want to keep a writer’s royalties as small as with p-books too!
Hey, Mike, I wonder if the price thing will apply to nonbestsellers. Bad news either way. Writers need to be paid. But should E cost as much as P? The one bright spot is that if I recall right, Penguin does reduce the prices of e-books that have been out there a bit. Thanks. D
[...] E-book sales rocket up at Random House, Penguin, S&S and elsewhere [...]
See, there
[...] Venda de livros digitais dispara (em inglês) – O livro de papel é o novo disco de vinil? [...]
ebookpirate – if you do it yourself and still only get 50% you’re getting ripped off. there are new services stepping in left and right (for example http://backmybook.com) that are only taking 10% off the top and just want to help authors get they’re name out there. a refreshing change from the big bully publishers if you ask me. http://ebookdistribution.org has more info on sites/services like that are stepping in as ebooks take over.