eBook sales continue growth surge in January, 2011 no comments
The Association of American Publishers has released its January 2011 sales figures based on information from contributing publishers.
In a month that saw sales in every pbook category except Religious (up 5.6 percent from the previous year) and Professional and Scholarly (up 1.3 percent) fall over the previous January, ebook sales were up 115.8 percent year over year. There were a lot of empty ereaders sold over the holidays that needed filling.
January 2010 saw ebook sales increase 261.2 percent over January 2009 — so this year’s growth, while still strong, is nowhere near as dramatic as we saw last year. One reason for this might be that ebooks are more expensive now than they were at the beginning of last year — before Apple and five of the largest publishers initiated the agency model. eBooks are also less of a novelty now, and this might be a contributing factor as well. Perhaps earlier adaptors were more apt to stock their virtual library shelves with more ebooks than they could read. I reached a backlog of 60-70 books on my ereaders before I started putting titles I wanted but did not have time for in my Wish List rather than the shopping cart.
Downloaded audiobooks also continue to grow in popularity — up 8.8 percent over the previous year.
