According to Publishers Weekly: Fiction is the leading sales driver of e-books, and just how dominant that segment has been is clearly seen in a new market study just released by Bowker. According to "2010–2011 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics & Buying Behaviors Annual Review," fiction accounted for 61% of unit sales in 2010 and 51% of revenue, putting it far ahead of other segments. The children's segment generated 12% of unit sales in 2010, placing it second behind fiction, while nonfiction accounted for the second highest amount of e-book revenue in 2010, with the segment representing 14% of sales.Another indication of...

From the Bowker Announcement: Traditional publishing grows a modest 5%, while POD sends print total over a record 3 million Bowker [has] released their annual report on U.S. print book publishing, compiled from its Books In Print database.  Based on preliminary figures from U.S. publishers,Bowker is projecting that despite the popularity of e-books, traditional U.S. print title output in 2010 increased 5%. Output of new titles and editions increased from 302,410 in 2009 to a projected 316,480 in 2010. The 5% increase comes on the heels of a 4% increase the previous year based on the final 2008-2009 figures. The non-traditional...

Publishers Weekly is reporting on a Bowker PubTrak Consumer analysis of second quarter market trends. Here are a few highlights. Go here for all the details. Digital sales accounted or 3.2% of unit purchases in the second quarter, up from 2.5% in the first quarter and from 1.9% in the 2009 second period. Books per buyer dipped from 2.7 in last year's second quarter to 2.4 in this year's second quarter. This figure includes ebooks. Ebook sales represented 5% of unit fiction sales, up from 3.5% in the first quarter. Ebooks have had less of an...

From the Report Summary: Bowker released its much-anticipated 2009 U.S. Book Consumer Demographics and Buying Behaviors Annual Report today, providing the U.S. book industry with the most complete consumer-based research on who buys books and why. The 2009 Annual Report is culled from more 44,000 total respondents, responsible for the purchase of 118,000 books in 2009. [Clip] This year’s report provides data not available in any other source with a scope that captures the changing nature of retail channels, including the growing presence of such mass merchandisers as Wal-Mart. Further, the report captures the...

Kat Meyer has an article over at Tools of Change about the Book Industry Study Group's latest consumer ebook survey. Here's a couple of items. A lot more at the site: # Right now Kindle holds the top spot for devices @ 40% - just passed the PC/laptop in the last survey @39% # Almost all PC / Laptop are .pdf still # Nearly half (49%) of ereading devices continue to be acquired as a gift from someone else # Cost of entry is still the top reason people who read ebooks have not switched to a device. # Among ebook buyer, print is definitely...

The Bookseller reports this result from Bowker's PubTrack survey. According to them, in November computers accounted for 47% and the Kindle 32%. In April, however, the Kindle had moved up to 40% and computers down to 39%. The article goes on to say that by April 32% of consumers were willing to wait 3 months to buy an ebook and that this is up from 30% in November. Further, "affordability" as a top feature of ebooks declined from 2.7 to 2.65, out of a scale of 3, in that period. Bowker said, at a presentation at BEA: “The new...