The American Booksellers Association President, Orien Teicher, sent his annual letter to members with some good news. Starting with ebooks, he says that there was a 28% increase in online sales for bookstores using the IndieCommerce platform. Sales of Kobo Readers and ebooks, though in the very early stages, are encouraging, he says. “We significantly outperformed our earlier efforts in this area, and thousands of new ebook accounts were opened by indie customers. I know there is much for both us and Kobo to do to grow and improve this program, and I assure you that remains a high priority for us in 2013.”
On the bookstore front, sales of independent booksellers were up almost 8% as compared to 2011, based on reports from about 500 bookstores. “However, the very healthy year-end number clearly demonstrates the vitality of independent bookstores. …. the fact is that 2012 was a good year for independent bookstores in the United States.”
More interesting information in the letter and it’s great news overall. There is no reason that ebooks and independents can’t coexist and be mutually profitable, and kudos to the ABA for trying to make this happen.
Paul Biba is a retired corporate international lawyer who has worked in 53 countries. Since he is a very fast reader he came to ebooks out of self-defense in order to avoid carrying a suitcase of books on his travels around the world. An early ebook adopter, he has read on Palms, Pocket PCs and practically every device that has been out there. After being a frequent contributor to TeleRead.com, the oldest ebook/epublishing blog on the net, Paul became TeleRead's Editor-in-Chief, a position he recently resigned. Send Paul an email to paulkbiba@gmail.com
