Lack of Real Numbers
According to Hugh Howey in his 7k Report, there are no
industry wide numbers that demonstrate the number of ebooks that are sold each
year. One reason for this lack of reliable information is that ebook
distributors do not have to reveal the specific sales data to consumers. So
even though you've most likely heard that ebooks only make up about one-fourth
of all book sales, the data is largely flawed at best. This 25% does not
account for many different genres and does not include self-published titles.
This leaves a huge hole in the data. Because there is no “bookscan” for ebooks, it is a struggle to find the numbers to create a reasonable estimate of the number of
books that are ebooks.
What We Do Know
We do know that self published works are seriously
under-reported when it comes to gathering the stats. We also know that Amazon
has been a key player in the growth of the ebook market. However, no one knows for sure what book market share actually belongs to
Amazon. By opening up the ebook market through its Kindle platform and the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) program, Amazon has
created an open platform for self-publishing authors. These self-published authors have become mainstream.
Staggering Stats of Amazon
Best-Sellers
Trade books are referenced in terms of New York Times
bestsellers. These types of books do not include titles such as children’s
books, cookbooks or academic books. If we consider only New York Times bestsellers we will
see that electronic books already make up about half of the sales. In Howey’s
7k Report, he looked at just Amazon bestsellers to see how ebooks stacked up
against print books and the numbers were astounding. Ebooks made up nearly 90%
of Amazon’s top 2,500 Bestsellers. That’s measured against audio editions, hard and
soft covers and mass market paperbacks as well. And when one takes a look at
the top 100 of these 2,500 bestselling books 92% were ebooks, not traditional print
books.
Projections for the
Future of eBooks
A look into the future is promising for the indie author as
the popularity of ebooks continues to soar. There’s high consumer demand as
many readers prefer the convenience of electronic readers to traditional books
and distribution is a simpler process for self publishing authors. Some predict
that by the middle of this year ebooks will make up half of all the books being
sold. This is not unreasonable given the recent data. If there ever was a time
for the indie author to publish, it’s now!
