E-book sales grew exponentially in 2011, far exceeding expectations. In the US, e-book sales increased 277% from 2009 to 2010, and growth continued strongly in 2011. Publishers reported substantial increases in e-book sales in the first few months of 2011 compared to the same period in 2010. The gap between the US and UK e-book markets was shrinking as global e-book sales rose rapidly. Self-publishing was facilitated by e-books as it provided higher profit margins than traditional publishing and allowed authors to bypass the industry's infrastructure. E-books stimulated new models of publishing and reading as their adoption varied across demographics and genres.

2. “
“
2011 will clearly be the year of the e-book.
Bloomsbury’s founder & chief executive Nigel Newton.

4. “ I expect e-books to be the fastest-growing
segment that publishing has ever seen.
“
Brian Murray, CEO of Harper Collins
“ The e-book sector’s performance in 2010 clearly shows
that digital publishing is growing at an impressive rate in “
whichever part of the sector you choose to look.
Richard Mollett CEO of the Publishers Association

5. Perhaps more impressive is the growth of the US market, as reported by the
Association of American Publishers (AAP). Over the whole 12 months of
2010, the AAP counted $441.3m in e-book sales for publishers in the US,
meaning a year-on-year increase of 277 percent from $116.9 million in 2009.
The graph above gives a month by month breakdown of this rapid increase
in US e-book sales.
The most noticeable growth period occurred at the turn of 2011, an upturn
that is also reflected by figures given by a number of publishers and
distributors. Bloomsbury recently announced January to March 2011 sales
were £1.1m, compared to £1.5 million in the whole of 2010. Amazon has also
achieved massive growth this year, reporting that for every 100 print books
sold on Amazon.com since April 1st 2011, 105 Kindle e-books have been
purchased.
These are amazing sales figures for the e-book, suggesting 2011 may be a year
of exponential growth exceeding even the most ambitious of estimates.
4

6. “ Publishers need to take digital seriously, they must make it
the new default for publishing, preparing for a day in which
physical book publishing is an adjunct activity that supports
“
the digital publishing business.
James McQuivey, Forrester Research

8. “
Technology is putting e-reading devices into consumers’ hands;
“
we are starting to see the rapid growth of digital sales.
Richard Mollett CEO, The Publishers Association

9. “
We think there’ll continue to be a niche for purpose-built e-readers
“
but that niche is getting smaller and smaller as it gets less and less
expensive to buy a multifunctional device,
Susan Kevorkian, IDC Analyst

10. “ The UK e-book market has lagged approximately two
years behind the US, but this gap is shrinking as global
“
e-book sales grow exponentially.
Richard Charkin, Executive Director Bloomsbury

11. • Penguin announced their sales had doubled
in the first three month of 2011 when
compared year on year to 2010.
• 5% of Hachette UK’s trade sales in the first
quarter of 2011 were e-books
• The Random House Group has exceeded 2
million e-book sales in 2011, meaning sales
have increased 10 fold year-on-year.
• UK Kindle titles outsell hardbacks at a rate of
more than 2 to 1 in the Amazon store.

12. E-books Have Stimulated the Rise of the Self-Publisher
The e-book revolution has not only changed the way people read books,
it has also had an enormous bearing on how content is published.
In the past, traditional print publishing houses have dominated sales and
distribution of titles. Generally it was assumed that these companies held the key
to the success or failure of a written book. This dynamic however, has been upset
greatly by a growing number of writers who bypass these publishing houses and
submit their work to e-bookstores, thus eliminating the high infrastructure costs of
a print product.
“ There are dozens of “indie” authors who are selling thousands of
e-books a month without a print version.
“
Simon Owens, thenextweb.com
One of the main advantages for self-
publishers going digital is the high profit
margins when compared to writers
going through publishing houses. In
most instances print authors will only
see 10-20 percent of the cover price,
whereas self-publishers can expect
to receive much higher margins - 70
percent when selling on the Kindle or
iBookstore (with the one exception
being that they only receive a 30 percent
margin on all 99c / 99p Kindle sales).
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13. “
If [publishers] wanted my three-book vampire series, a quarter
of a million dollars wouldn’t even do it, because I can make more
“
than that in a year on those three books.
Tina Folsom, Self-published author

14. “
E-book adoption will vary widely by
“
demographic and genre,
Benedict Evans, analyst at Enders

15. “
More and more, reading is taking on a bigger definition. It’s
expanding in terms of content - not just books, but newspapers
and magazines. It implies the need for colour, graphics, and other
“
forms of media.
Allen Weiner, VP of research at Gartner

17. “ The promise of having another platform where books
can be discovered is still true today. The potential [of the
“
iBookstore] is enormous.
Brian Murray, CEO of HarperCollins Publishers