Hardback sales plummeting in age of the ebook | Books | guardian.co.uk
Although BookScan has yet to begin monitoring digital sales across the UK market, the Association of American Publishers announced this week that "explosive growth" means ebooks now account for 13.6% of the adult fiction market in the US, with total ebook sales increasing by over 1,000% over the last three years. Amazon, meanwhile, has sold over a million copies of ebooks by bestselling authors including James Patterson, Stieg Larsson, Suzanne Collins and Lee Child.
"It really does look like ebook sales are actually cannibalising physical sales," said Breedt, although the decline in hardback fiction sales is also down to the general economic climate, he added. "The early part of the year was particularly tough for retail. The first quarter was the hardest so far for people's pockets since 2009."
