Amazon Now Sells More eBooks Than Paper Books
Yesterday. the future arrived.
[[[Amazon]]] announced that eBooks are now the most popular sales format on Amazon.com, outselling the joint sales of hardback and paperback books. Since April 1, 2011, for every 100 print books Amazon has sold, it has sold 105 Kindle editions. It took Amazon just about four years to make that statement come true, and it represents the tipping point.
Related to that, the Association of American Publishers released new sales figures for March 2011, and eBook sales were up from last year, but down from February 2011. March eBook sales totaled $69.9 million, compared to $90.3 million in February 2011. Still, this was a big increase from March 2010, which saw $28.1M in sales (a 145.7% increase).
And yes, they’re cannibalizing paper sales.
So far, we don’t have numbers on what it’s doing for comic sales, although Apple has stated that the most in-app purchases have come from comic book programs, although no one’s quoting hard numbers yet. But it will only be a matter of time and display technology.
As for me, I don’t feel like Kevin McCarthy screaming in traffic quite so much anymore.