Today it included the AAP sales for August. Oooh, aaaah.
THE E-BOOKS ARE COMING, THE E-BOOKS ARE COMING!!! SHUTTER YOUR WINDOWS AND LOCK YOUR DOORS, THE E-BOOKS ARE COMING!!!
Sorry, couldn't resist. There was a 172.4% increase in e-book sales! That's huge. But, selling only $39 million (psh, only) it doesn't even come close to touching the $77.8 million for children's/YA hardcover sales or the $83.8 for adult hardcovers. It is still a significant increase though. And I think it's an increase that will only continue.
I'll admit -- I'm an e-book buyer. Does that mean I'll never buy hard-copy books again? Heck no! But the things I'm buying on a whim, yeah, they're gonna come from my Nook.
What do you guys think of this? Does it scare you? Or do you think it's just another way to get books into readers hands?
The chart from the AAP is below.
AAP Sales:
| CATEGORY | SALES | PERCENT CHANGE |
| E-books | $39 million | 172.4% |
| University press paperbacks | $10.1 million | 15.7% |
| Professional books | $102.7 million | 14.5% |
| Higher education | $969.7 million | 11.8% |
| University press hardcovers | $6.1 million | 10.2% |
| Downloaded audiobooks | $6.3 million | 4.6% |
| | | |
| Religious books | $58.1 million | -0.4% |
| K-12 /El-Hi | $629.6 million | -4.9% |
| Children's/YA hardcover | $77.8 million | -8% |
| Children's/YA paperback | $58.9 million | -15.1% |
| Adult paperback | $124.9 million | -18.3% |
| Adult mass market | $54.9 million | -21.9% |
| Physical audiobooks | $9.9 million | -23.4% |
| Adult hardcover | $83.8 million | -24.4% |
6 comments:
Very informative. :) I, personally, don't see myself buying e-books--I'm too much of a tactile reader. I need to feel the pages and everything. However, I'm not against it. I say more power to them if they get more people to read.
Like Pam said, I don't have anything against e-books, but I tried to read Hate List through Barnes and Nobles computer reader and got to page 15 before I just couldn't do it. I had to buy the book and hold it in my hands. I guess it's an "old school" things. The kids today will probably soon demand all books on something electronic- I think textbooks are even going to go that route soon. But I will ALWAYS be a "actual book in my hand" kind of girl :)
I agree with Pam and Quita. I think e-readers are great for people who enjoy them, but I'm not one of them. Not against them (if I traveled a lot, I'd definitely have one), but just not for me. There's such a sense of nostalgia for me in owning a book (whenever I reread a book, I think about where I've read it before, what I was doing then, etc), I wouldn't want to give that up!
I definitely want an e-reader, and hope to get one in the next year. I don't want to read exclusively in an e-format, but I'd love the simplicity and the (arguable) environmental benefits.
I know computers have a ton of crap in them that is NOT environmentally friendly and is also mined/extracted in ways that destroy communities around the world... so I am not sure how they compare. But to think of getting a book with no paper, no trees, no shipping, etc., is also kind of exciting from an enviro standpoint.
Oh, and more than buy an e-reader, this post makes me want to INVEST in those that sell them. But alas, I have no money!
Theoretically, I buy e-books to save on shipping hard copies to Japan.
In practice, I bought my Kindle in June. I've purchased 5 Kindle books since then. And 45 hard copies.
Yeah. Theory FAIL.
Post a Comment