Book sales: going down, going up

November book sales numbers are out, and they don't look great, print-wise. But e-books? They're hot.

Print book sales were down, the Assn. of American Publishers reports, in all the major trade categories. Year-to-date hardcover sales in 2010 are down 6.1%; mass market paperbacks have fallen off even more, by 14%. And while adult paperbacks are doing all right for the year, in November their sales fell by a whopping 19%.

Keen industry watchers have noted that paperbacks may have the most to lose from the advancing popularity of e-books. Do the latest numbers on e-book sales bear that out? Perhaps so. While paperbacks are slipping, e-books are rising at a huge rate: in November, e-book sales rose nearly 130%, Publishers Weekly reports. For 2010, year-to-date the average was even higher, a rise of around 165%.

Part of that is, of course, because e-books are still a small part of the industry -- triple-digit increases are easier when starting from a small absolute number. So far, e-book sales are at $391.9 million for 2010; that's about 10% of the total number of traditional book sales, which as of October totaled $3.9 billion.

Is the rise in e-books beginning to eat away at the popularity of print books? Will paperbacks take the biggest hit? The holiday numbers -- for December 2010, and also January 2011, when new e-reader owners settled in with their devices -- may reveal much about e-books' place in publishing.

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Books and a mobile phone with e-books via the Kindle app. Credit: Pen Waggener via Flickr.

Comments

[Yassemin]

Well it serves greedy bookshops right for overpricing books. Of course people will seek a cheaper (usually) and more easily accessible e book. The prices of hardbacks/paperbacks nowadays are just absolutely ridiculous. Too expensive. I'm glad I have my kindle to fall back on.

[Karen Brown]

It'll be interesting to see the numbers as 2011 progresses. Change in the pricing models for both print and e-books seems inevitable and should close the gap substantially. Another factor going forward is gadget-related: seamless (or not) e-reader software updates, and cost of upgrading to the latest.

[deepwater805]

E-books are the future. Even to an avid old dog reader like me, I have to admit that it's hard to justify all that paper usage when we don't have to. I've just a couple old paper backs to go till I go Kindle.

[M. Francis]

I have always been a reader and a book buyer. The Kindle is the single best gift I have ever given myself. I started with the first model and recently got the new version as well. I have more than 600 listings on my Home page, representing well over 1,000 volumes, in a format that lets me carry them all in one hand. What's not to love?

The only paper books I've bought since are ones I want to give as gifts to non-Kindle owners.

[Jim]

I bought an ebook to solve the problem of what to do with the book after I have read it. They are usually worth so little on Amazon.com that they aren't worth the effort of shipping it.

I can't help but notice I prefer reading a paperback to the ebook, so the ebook sits on a shelf more than it gets used.

[Simon]

I'm too much of a traditionalist. I like the weight and feel of a book . . . After staring at a computer monitor all day, why do I want to look at another screen when I sit down in the evening to read and unwind?

[KDH]

I love to read, but for the last several years, I had stopped buying books because of the dilemma of what to do with them when you're done. Keep them in case you want to read them again? Save them for when the kids get older? Donate them? I'd purchased several bookcases over the years and was running out of space to store them all. I've now owned a Kindle since September 2010, and except in very rare cases I don't think I'll buy a paper book for myself again.

[jackwells]

I'm sorry to say, but part of the reason for weak sales, particularly on the fiction side, is that it has been a very weak year for literature. If you go back a few years to, say, the period 2006-2009, those were exceptional years for new fiction, especially for foreign authors in translation. I buy a lot of books. I bought none in 2010.

[Robert]

Until Amazon lets Kindle users loan or give away e-books, the market will remain artificially depressed. E-books would really take off against paperbacks if they weren't tied to the original purchaser.

[Shely]

No matter what the prices are, Books are never expensive. Personally I love the feel of an actual printed book, so I don't think the prices in book shops are ridiculous. It doesn't matter if they come in paperbacks, hardbacks, or e-books. Books are worth every penny because most take years to write and only weeks (even days) to read. They provide so much more in return for so little in cost.

[Roy R. Platt]

One can loan eBooks to anyone with an eBook app downloaded to almost any device if both people are using either NOOK or a NOOK app.

The Barnes & Noble NOOK, unlike Kindle, is an open, rather than a closed, device.

NOOK also allows one to check out eBooks from libraries.

NOOKcolor, unlike any Kindle device, also offers a full color touch screen and can download many Android apps.

[Barbara]

I'm with you, Simon! I like the feeling of actually READING a book, the mechanics of it--picking up a book of my dresser, opening the book, turning the page, turning page(s) back to reread a phrase or section that really grabbed me. There's a "romance" of sorts to the ritual of reading for me. While my husband forever asks me when/if I want a Kindle, I hold fast to print on paper...he gave me three BOOK books for Christmas...vive los libros!

[Kaithleen]

I believe it is quite simple. Book lovers will still buy books, preferably Hard covers as they are durable and look nicer in your hands and in the bookshelves.

However, e-books vs paperback... E-book is easily the winner;
cheaper than paperbacks, e-books appear in a portable format that will not get trashed over the years. It will remain the same. The paperbacks will end up stained with coffee, have a tear here and there and dog ears because we like to carry it around (it's supposed to be more practical than hard covers, but look where it ends up...).

As a book lover, I buy hard covers. If none is available at the moment for the book I yearn for, I guess the easy choice would be an e-book, if only I owned the device for it. Maybe one day.

I say the market for the paperback will be done for as the cleverer choice, one that is both economical and ecological, is indeed to go for the e-book.

But there will always be book lovers, and that's where the hard cover market will never die.