eBooks outsell print books at Amazon

DACasey · May 19, 2011

Amazon just announced they sell more eBooks than print books.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/19/th...-sales-surpass-print-it-only-took-four-years/

This will come as a bit of a shock to all those publishing professionals who insisted two months ago that authors won't make money with eBooks because eBooks were only 8.7% of the book market.

ETA: Amazon is selling 105 eBooks for every 100 print books in the U.S. and Amazon UK is now selling more Kindle eBooks than hardcovers.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/amazo...se-print-versions-114-kindle-top-seller/49026

This news won't surprise John Blake, managing director of John Blake Books in the U.K., who reported:

"I was fascinated to discover that serious readers—people who buy more than 12 books a year—are fast becoming the keenest e-book customers. These, surely, are the very people who would wish to purchase hardbacks rather than waiting months for an e-book edition."

http://www.thebookseller.com/blogs/joy-real-books.html

Yeah, avid U.K. readers would really rather spend more money on hardcovers than eBooks, but their actual purchases are saying otherwise.

KevinMcLaughlin · May 19, 2011

The only real shock is that the announcement took this long.

Amazon said in January they were already outselling MMP with ebooks; something like 100::138 ratio for ebooks to print, around the end of Jan, if I recall right. And with ebook sales having gone up so much - those AAP Feb sales numbers - this was inevitable.

Actually, the delay means one of three things. Either 1) It happened in Feb/March and Amazon delayed the press release for PR reasons, 2) It happened in Feb/March and Amazon only collated the data completely this month, or 3) Amazon's *print* sales have been soaring too (maybe because of Borders's issues), and that slowed down ebooks overtaking print. Or 4), the Feb numbers the AAP released last month were badly screwed up - always a possibility too.

(Simple math: if the AAP numbers were right, and roughly 29.5% of book sales in Feb were ebooks, and the 70% market share on ebooks Amazon has been estimated to hold is still good, then Amazon had 20.65% of the US market just in ebooks; for them to be selling more print books than ebooks in Feb, therefore, they would have had to be selling over 41% of all books, print and digital, in the US. The highest estimates I've seen for their US consumer book market share is about 1/3 of the market, so that seems unlikely but not impossible.)

ChaosTitan · May 19, 2011

DACasey said:
Amazon just announced they sell more eBooks than print books.

http://techcrunch.com/2011/05/19/th...-sales-surpass-print-it-only-took-four-years/

This will come as a bit of a shock to all those publishing professionals who insisted two months ago that authors won't make money with eBooks because eBooks were only 8.7% of the book market.

ETA: Amazon is selling 105 eBooks for every 100 print books in the U.S. and Amazon UK is now selling more Kindle eBooks than hardcovers.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/amazo...se-print-versions-114-kindle-top-seller/49026

There is something to keep in mind, though, when parsing this information: Amazon is the only retailer for Kindle format books. So it stands to reason that Kindle sales would increase. And Amazon is not the only place where book buyers can buy print books.

From CNN.com:

Of course, these stats only represent sales of books on Amazon.com, the only place consumers can buy e-books for the Kindle. When sales of books from other websites and brick-and-mortar stores are factored in, e-books still represent a small minority of all titles purchased, although some analysts predict they could reach 20% within a year or two.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TECH/gaming.gadgets/05/19/kindle.outsells.books/

And I deleted the email already, but the latest Publisher's Lunch said that AAP numbers showed ebook sales actually declined a little bit in March. Oh, here it is.

kaitie · May 19, 2011

I agree. Just because Amazon is selling more doesn't mean ebooks are selling more in general. First, Amazon is only a slice of the total number of books sold. Second, kindle is still the most popular and the only place those books can be bought. Third, Amazon has spent a ridiculous amount on marketing for the kindle that it isn't doing on print books, meaning a big spike in numbers for it should be expected. We've also seen Amazon playing with price points in the past to encourage sales one direction or another, so without knowing more about that, it's possible that they're intentionally leading sales to ebooks over print.

Most people still buy print books in bookstores. Yes, ebooks are gaining popularity, but this doesn't mean they rule the world yet. Hell, I take anything that comes from Amazon with a grain of salt. They have a serious agenda--to sell more kindles and more ebooks.

shadowwalker · May 19, 2011

Frankly, I don't care what share of sales ebooks/print books have. I'm more interested in things like "Are people reading more?" or "Are people buying more books?". When I get published, the medium won't matter to me, as long as my publisher is covering the bases.

KevinMcLaughlin · May 19, 2011

I'm getting the same 17% (actually, 16.9449%) from the AAP numbers released today, for ebook sales as a percent of all trade books. So it looks like the big spike in Feb was a blip, maybe caused by a combination of massive ereader sales over the holiday plus Borders's issues.

That's something of a relief, actually.

I'd rather see a slower build over time, as I think that's healthier for the industry as a whole.

As a side note, the 105::100 Kindle to print thing Amazon announced, coupled with the 17% data from the AAP, means that Amazon is still only selling around 25% of all trade books in the US. That's not a lot of growth, if any, from two years ago. So despite their massive ebook growth, their total market percentage has not swelled much, which implies they are cannibalizing their print market share to feed their ebook market share. Not sure if that data means anything, but it's interesting.

(Edit: @ChaosTitan - thanks for mentioning the new data, hadn't heard it was out yet!)

Old Hack · May 19, 2011

Also, the figures don't seem to discuss turnover, just units sold; and I don't think they include the sales of print books made in Amazon Marketplace (which accounts for a large proportion of books sold on Amazon), just Amazon's new book sales.

I'd like to see the value of these various levels of sales. Bearing in mind that lots of Kindle editions are priced at 99c it's highly likely that the print editions might well bring in more money for the writers and publishers concerned; and people never seem to consider what the readership level is. It's all very well to sell a load of books at a very low price: but if many of those sales are impulse buys and the books never get read, that's not building a readership for the author concerned.

As ever, it's important to think about what the statistics really mean, not what the news story suggests they mean.

KevinMcLaughlin · May 19, 2011

The sales numbers are in dollars, OldHack, not units... So that 17% is a percentage of sales dollars. The actual unit percentage of ebooks sold, as you pointed out, is probably much higher since they tend to be priced lower.

Old Hack · May 19, 2011

I knew that.

Ha!

KevinMcLaughlin · May 19, 2011

Oh, yeah - a link would help, eh?

Link to the AAP data for March, released today:
http://www.publishers.org/press/32/

Whoa... Wondering something else now. March was the month that saw such huge growth in indie writer and small press presence on ebook bestseller lists. I wonder how much of that dip in ebook sales is represented by increases in sales simply not tracked by the AAP because they're not sold by one of the "16 largest ebook publishers"?

Wish we had real numbers to play with. This sort of halfway data really doesn't make for good analysis.

gothicangel · May 19, 2011

From The Guardian:

Nicola Solomon said:
the Bookseller[/URL], said they might not reflect financial success. "It's an interesting headline. In actual money terms, though, I'm not sure that would be true, but principally because some of these ebooks are being sold at very low prices."
More than 650,000 ebooks are available at Amazon.co.uk, which said its bestselling ebook titles in 2011 have included The Basement by Stephen Leather – priced at 49p – and The Hanging Shed by Gordon Ferris, which costs £1.20.

In other words, sales are up but it doesn't reflect in money terms.

DACasey · May 23, 2011

KevinMcLaughlin said:
Amazon said in January they were already outselling MMP with ebooks; something like 100::138 ratio for ebooks to print, around the end of Jan, if I recall right.

Amazon reported selling 100 eBooks vs. 115 paperbacks and 100 eBooks vs. 120 print books from Jan. 1, 2011 until its 4th quarter financial report, dated Jan. 27, 2011:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/richard-adams-blog/2011/jan/28/amazon-kindle-ebook-paperback-sales

http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1521090

KevinMcLaughlin said:
Actually, the delay means one of three things. Either 1) It happened in Feb/March and Amazon delayed the press release for PR reasons, 2) It happened in Feb/March and Amazon only collated the data completely this month, or 3) Amazon's *print* sales have been soaring too (maybe because of Borders's issues), and that slowed down ebooks overtaking print. Or 4), the Feb numbers the AAP released last month were badly screwed up - always a possibility too.

I doubt Jeff Bezos sat on the info for even one day or that it took a long time to collate the data. Why do I think so?

1. At the end of last year, Barnes & Noble announced they sold more digital books than print books at BN.com, the world's second largest online bookstore. (Since Amazon.com is the world's largest, that statistic is a bit embarrassing, don't you think? Why let B&N rub it in month after month?)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/ebooks-paper-books-barnes-noble-nook_n_802835.html

http://hothardware.com/News/BNs-Noo...lling-More-Digital-Books-Than-Physical-Books/

2. He's sitting on a mountain of purchasing data the size of Mt. Everest. He can determine exactly how many Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, Blu-Ray disks were shipped yesterday to Dayton, Ohio. Using Super Saver Shipping. Before 10:43 AM Pacific. And the most popular book that shipped with it. And the most popular item. And which of those Dayton customers made purchases in the previous 30, 60 and 90 days and exactly how much they spent on each order.

DACasey · May 23, 2011

ChaosTitan said:
the latest Publisher's Lunch said that AAP numbers showed ebook sales actually declined a little bit in March. Oh, here it is.

Thanks for that, but be careful to compare apples with apples. Amazon's report comparing actual sales of its eBooks and print books is from Apr. 1 to about May 18, 2011, but the AAP report is for an earlier period, Mar. 1 - 31, 2011, and compares actual sales of 14 publishers' eBooks with 84 publishers' wholesale shipments to bookstores (hoping for sales), adjusted for returns from previous months' shipments, which can artificially inflate print sales percentages when compared to eBook sales. (Mike Shatzkin explains it much better than I can. Please see his blog post: http://www.idealog.com/blog/ebook-sales-comparisons-to-print-arent-always-what-they-seem )

DACasey · May 23, 2011

kaitie said:
Just because Amazon is selling more doesn't mean ebooks are selling more in general. First, Amazon is only a slice of the total number of books sold.

Amazon is raising the flag to alert the publishing market, just like B&N did in December. The two largest online booksellers are selling more eBooks than print books. Online bookstores are becoming more and more important to book buyers because so many physical stores are closing or have already closed.

Where I live has a population of 640,000 in a 50 mile radius. Four years ago, six chain bookstores and nearly as many indies serviced our communities. Now there's only one book store. Many in my area are shopping online for books, print or not. But when people shop online, the instant delivery of eBooks is more convenient than to drive all the way to a book store during store hours, especially considering the cost of gas these days.

kaitie said:
Second, kindle is still the most popular and the only place those books can be bought.

Which means Amazon and B&N (with their Nook and 27% of the eBook market) together have a fairly good window to view what's really going on with eBooks in real-time, probably better than any of the 14 publishers who report their monthly sales to the AAP, which takes about seven weeks to gather the data, collate it, and report it.

kaitie said:
Third, Amazon has spent a ridiculous amount on marketing for the kindle that it isn't doing on print books

We can't expect Amazon to spend a ridiculous amount on marketing print books, can we? Traditionally, that's the publisher's job. If publishers aren't adequately marketing and promoting their own print books, their competitors will be happy to grab more market share.

kaitie said:
We've also seen Amazon playing with price points in the past to encourage sales one direction or another, so without knowing more about that, it's possible that they're intentionally leading sales to ebooks over print.

Like maybe selling truckloads more 99 cent and $2.99 eBooks than print books? What kind of capitalists would do such a thing?

kaitie said:
Most people still buy print books in bookstores. Yes, ebooks are gaining popularity, but this doesn't mean they rule the world yet. Hell, I take anything that comes from Amazon with a grain of salt. They have a serious agenda--to sell more kindles and more ebooks.

I agree with you on these counts, but I'd take it a step further when defining Amazon's agenda. I think Amazon's agenda is to monopolize a large segment of the book market by controlling the supply chain (authors), manufacturing (as a publisher), the distribution chain (online sales), all the way to the customer and how the customer consumes the end product (Kindle).

DACasey · May 23, 2011

shadowwalker said:
Frankly, I don't care what share of sales ebooks/print books have. ... When I get published, the medium won't matter to me, as long as my publisher is covering the bases.

Don't worry. Your agent cares immensely and will wrestle the best deal for the best royalty combination for you, because she gets a 15% cut of it.

DACasey · May 23, 2011

Old Hack said:
I don't think they include the sales of print books made in Amazon Marketplace (which accounts for a large proportion of books sold on Amazon), just Amazon's new book sales.

They include all "paid" sales in the comparison.

Old Hack said:
It's all very well to sell a load of books at a very low price: but if many of those sales are impulse buys and the books never get read, that's not building a readership for the author concerned.

As ever, it's important to think about what the statistics really mean, not what the news story suggests they mean.

It's the quality of the sales that count, for sure, but it's nigh impossible to get an accurate measuring stick.

James D. Macdonald · May 23, 2011

The key words are "at Amazon."

ColoradoMom · May 23, 2011

DACasey said:
Thanks for that, but be careful to compare apples with apples. Amazon's report comparing actual sales of its eBooks and print books is from Apr. 1 to about May 18, 2011, but the AAP report is for an earlier period, Mar. 1 - 31, 2011, and compares actual sales of 14 publishers' eBooks with 84 publishers' wholesale shipments to bookstores (hoping for sales), adjusted for returns from previous months' shipments, which can artificially inflate print sales percentages when compared to eBook sales. (Mike Shatzkin explains it much better than I can. Please see his blog post: http://www.idealog.com/blog/ebook-sales-comparisons-to-print-arent-always-what-they-seem )

Great blog, thanks for that link!

thothguard51 · May 23, 2011

Amazon may be reporting / bragging that they have sold 105 ebooks for every 100 print books sold, but I don't see Amazon removing print books anytime soon as they make more on print than they do on ebooks.

And that is just the way it is...

KevinMcLaughlin · May 24, 2011

thothguard51 said:
Amazon may be reporting / bragging that they have sold 105 ebooks for every 100 print books sold, but I don't see Amazon removing print books anytime soon as they make more on print than they do on ebooks.

And that is just the way it is...

Yes.

For now.

Oh, they won't pull print anytime soon, but I would not be shocked to see ebooks outgrossing all print sales by this time next year.

Julie Reilly · May 24, 2011

As a consumer, personally the only print books I will probably be buying from now on for myself will be Pratchetts.

I will continue to buy print books as gifts - I bought the latest Auel for my mum's birthday tomorrow as she loves the series, although I hope she won't be disappointed as it has been slated.

I'll also continue to buy print books for my kids.

Terie · May 24, 2011

KevinMcLaughlin said:
Yes.

For now.

Oh, they won't pull print anytime soon, but I would not be shocked to see ebooks outgrossing all print sales by this time next year.

Why on the goddess's green earth would they stop selling print books? Do you not know that Amazon sells all kinds of things that aren't e-books? That they actually make more money selling all kinds of things that aren't books at all? And despite that, they still keep print books for sale. They aren't going to stop selling things people want to buy just because some people don't buy those things.

KevinMcLaughlin · May 24, 2011

Terie said:
Why on the goddess's green earth would they stop selling print books? Do you not know that Amazon sells all kinds of things that aren't e-books? That they actually make more money selling all kinds of things that aren't books at all? And despite that, they still keep print books for sale. They aren't going to stop selling things people want to buy just because some people don't buy those things.

Exactly. I mean, with POD - with someone else doing fulfillment on their orders, and Amazon not needing to actually warehouse or ship the books - I don't see Amazon *ever* wanting to drop print books entirely. Like ebooks, POD books are almost pure income for them.

Torgo · May 24, 2011

DACasey said:
This will come as a bit of a shock to all those publishing professionals who insisted two months ago that authors won't make money with eBooks because eBooks were only 8.7% of the book market.

Who they?

DACasey · May 24, 2011

James D. Macdonald said:
The key words are "at Amazon."

It's not just at Amazon. B&N announced five months ago that BN.com, the world's second largest online bookstore, was selling more eBooks than print.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/30/ebooks-paper-books-barnes-noble-nook_n_802835.html

http://hothardware.com/News/BNs-Noo...lling-More-Digital-Books-Than-Physical-Books/

In the quarter ended March 31, HarperCollins announced eBook sales accounted for 19% of sales in the U.S. and 11% worldwide.

http://new.publishersweekly.com/pw/.../47106-book-sales-lower-at-harpercollins.html

The Hachette Book Group (formerly Time Warner Book Group -- I know you know this, but others reading this post might not) announced eBook sales accounted for 22% of revenue for the quarter. Simon & Schuster announced that 17% of worldwide revenues came from eBooks. (I speculate that if S&S's U.S. book sales were broken out separately, eBooks would account for something north of 20% of U.S. revenues.)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jac...s.html?cid=6a00d8341c630a53ef014e883ee57c970d

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...mon--schuster-results-up-digital-doubles.html

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/05/2011/ebooks-are-17-of-simon-schuster-revenues-worldwide/

These publishers are using agency pricing, so you know they aren't manipulating eBook prices to lure customers at 99 cents to increase unit sales. They asked full price for eBooks, and book buyers bought them at a rate of about 20% of revenues for these publishers during the quarter when the publishing experts were claiming eBooks were a paltry 8.7% of the market.

Amazon and B&N have been telling us eBook numbers are climbing much faster than expected, months before the AAP can.

eBooks outsell print books at Amazon

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