E-Book Sales Growing Rapidly

Electronic books accounted for 9% of all new book sales <http://tinyurl.com/2uue4eb> in the US over the last year (through August of this year). That's up from 3.3% of all book sales in the year before. The pace of the e-book growth is accelerating with August 2010 sales roughly double what they were in August of 2009. Meanwhile, hardcover sales were down 24% in the same period.

While e-books only make up 9% of total sales, e-books now outsell hardcovers through Amazon. Amazon, with several models of its Kindle e-book reader, is the leading retailer of electronic books. The growth in e-book sales can be attributed to myriad reasons: a lower list price than hardcover books; increased competition through more e-book stores; competing e-reader devices; falling prices of these devices; and the popularity of Apple's iPad, which while not strictly an e-reader, has done a lot to popularize various e-book formats.