Accelerating change in the book world
12 April 2011

The pace of change in the book world is accelerating. In 2009, Indigo CEO Heather Reisman figured that 15% of her traditional book business would be eroded by e-book sales within 5 years.

On April 8, 2011, she told The Globe & Mail’s Marina Strauss, she’s looking at 40% in the net 5 years.

U.S. e-book sales are expected to nearly triple to $2.8-billion by 2015, according to Forrester Research estimates.

And an April 11 response by Bruce Batchelor to a Quill & Quire Omni report on Strauss’s article argues:

“The change from print-books to e-books is happening even faster than Heather predicts. Some large US publishers are reporting 25% of their sales are already happening in e-book format, and none are reporting less than 10%. This is particularly noticeable in FICTION, for which print-book sales dropped 9.8% in the UK in the first quarter of 2011, compared to last year; in the US, print-book sales dropped a massive 19.3% for the past three months. [Both figures from Nielsen Book, the main industry tracking system.]"

Linda Leith

.ll.



More Articles

Review of A Wicked Company

by Kenneth Radu

Wicked company, therefore, is to be understood as the hostile official attitude towards men (mostly men) of intellectual daring who challenged the assumptions of religion and society. Inconvenient thinkers could be imprisoned and atheists could still be executed at the time, a practice I believe some would wish to continue today. That was the purpose of the radical salon: room for a coterie of free thinkers to converse bravely on many subjects, including dangerous critiques of the ancien régime and the Church, without fear of reprisal, at least from their fair hostess.

8-Logos-bottom