Further to yesterday’s reporting of AAP monthly sales data for April, we have updated versions of our standing charts of ebook sales patterns. One clear trend is that the days of doubling or more are over; as the ebook sales base rises, the year-over-year growth is moderating. In fact, over the past few months, that growth rate has dropped dramatically. As this tabulation shows, September 2011 was the last time AAP-monitored ebook sales doubled. The growth rate diminished in October, just in time for the biggest quarter of book sales, and held through the post-Christmas ebook spike in January. But […]
eNews
Fifty Shades And Lower Returns Bump Up April AAP Numbers, With eBooks At 19.6 Percent Overall Sales
After a flatter overall trade market in March, the AAP numbers for April are the first to reap the benefits of big sales from EL James’ FIFTY SHADES OF GREY TRILOGY, though the numbers have much more to do with cleaner returns (and getting past the Borders bankruptcy) rather than an outright improvement in sales. Net trade sales from reporting publishers totaled $386.4 million for the month, a big $33.8 million ahead of the revised total for April 2011. Net children’s and young adult sales jumped from $97.2 million a year ago to $120.9 million this year. Adult ebook sales […]
Textbook Time: Kno Adds K-12 eTexts and Amazon Joins Book Rental Market
Back to school time looms, which means more textbook announcements. Start-up Kno is expanding from their base in college textbooks to the K-12 textbook market. They offer one-year rentals for $9.99 or less (though any parent knows that trying to “finally stop their kids from carrying their heavy backpacks to and from school” is a pipe dream). Their first K-12 digital textbooks come from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. In a separate press release, Amazon announced that they are finally renting physical textbooks to college students, just like most of the major competitors in the market (from Barnes & Noble College, Nebraska […]
eNews: Amazon UK Says Kindle Sales There Surpass Print; AG Asks Court To Declare GBS “Is Not Fair Use”; And More
Amazon UK issued a press release Monday touting the news that ebook sales now outpace all print sales combined, measured across 2012. For every 100 print books sold from Amazon.co.uk (in all formats combined), they’ve sold 114 Kindle editions. As usual, their ratio excludes free Kindle books (but does include very inexpensive ones, and KDP titles). Amazon US passed a similar milestone as of April 1, 2011. They also declare EL James as Amazon UK’s all-time bestselling author, they say, her combined print and Kindle sales eclipsing JK Rowling’s total sales at the site. Amazon UK has sold more than […]
eNews: Inkling Expands to iPhones, and More
Inkling is releasing an update of their reader apps that expands the interactive textbook and multimedia book platform to support iPhones and iPod touches. (Up until now, Inkling has worked on the iPad only.) Among the phone-optimized features, users can choose to download just a chapter at a time to their smaller screens. With their Inkling Habitat service for publishing by third parties, ceo Matt MacInnis claims in the release, “We’re now the world’s only publishing platform for interactive content on phones, tablets and the web.” He adds, “This is the first time anyone has shrunk complex content like textbooks […]
People, Etc.
At S&S Children’s, Hannah Buchsbaum has joined Little Simon as associate editor. Previously she was at Disney Press. Michael Rediker is joining Books-a-Million as corporate development analyst, responsible for identifying, analyzing and implementing strategic corporate initiatives within the organization, including new business growth opportunities. He will report to evp James Turner. He was most recently with the investment banking firm Paces Battle Group. Author Maeve Binchy, 72, died after what was reported as a short illness. Ireland’s RTE says she sold over 40 million books in 42 languages. Ireland’s president Michael Higgins called her “an outstanding novelist, short story writer and columnist” and […]