Billion$ in E-Books

Forrester Research is projecting the e-book market to hit $966 this year and surpass $1 billion in 2011 and be worth $3 billion by 2015.  In 2009 e-books generated just 169.5 million.  A few weeks ago we passed along the news that Amazon now sells more e-books than hard covers.  Their numbers then were 143 e-books for every 100 hard covers.   Presumably, that ratio has increased since then.  A couple of other data points from the Forrester analysis point out the potential for even more growth:

• Only 7% of book readers have ever read an e-book
• Those who own a Kindle or other e-book reader now read 2/3 of their books electronically.

This spectacular rate of growth comes with a big question, do e-book sales increase the book market, or does it cannibalize sales a la digital song downloads and physical CDs?