E-book sales rocket up at Random House, Penguin, S&S and elsewhere
“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
August 31st, 2008 at 12:20 pm
>>>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!
August 31st, 2008 at 1:30 pm
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
September 2nd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
[...] E-book sales rocket up at Random House, Penguin, S&S and elsewhere [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:56 am
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!
Ebook distribution is free!!! If you’ve got VALUABLE OR WANNA READ rading material, Get yourself your own website or form a co-op with other authors and sell your own ebooks and you’ll make what you deserve, 50% or more for the ebook that YOU created. Cut the diaper strings from Big Distribution and publishers.
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:00 pm
[...] Venda de livros digitais dispara (em inglês) – O livro de papel é o novo disco de vinil? [...]