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.