e-Books were not the format of choice during the summer months, as they only accounted for 21% of all industry sales. The vast majority of readers instead embraced paperback and hardcovers. Paperbacks accounted for 43% of all units sold and hardcover purchases remained fairly steady at 25%. This statistics basically prove that digital still has a way to go before it ever over takes print, and readers would rather wait for the paperback version comes out, instead of paying extra money for the hardcover.
Nielsen runs quarterly book surveys as an avenue to give people a sense of the health of the publishing industry. They reported that out of the 21% of people purchasing e-books, 57% were buying the Kindle editions from Amazon. Barnes and Noble was the only other major competitor, garnering 14% of all digital book sales and Apple had a paltry 6% share market share.
One of Amazons greatest strengths is their sheer number of e-readers and tablets they release every year. In the six few months they released the Kindle Voyage, Kindle Basic Touch, Kindle Fire HD6, HD 7, and HDX 8.9. Most of their competitors only released 1-3 devices over the course of the entire year. According to Nielsen, 23% of consumers used a Kindle to download e-books in the first nine months of 2014, and another 21% used the Kindle Fire. Apple’s iPad was used by 18% of consumers to download e-books, while 4% used an iPhone. Barnes & Noble’s Nook had a 9% share of e-book downloads.
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
