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

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