A report from the Association of American Publishers reveals that e-books sales experienced 'powerful continuing growth', and paper books of all types dipped, compared to the same period (January-February) from last year. This isn’t surprising news though- and even if it were, it’s just history repeating itself; we’ve seen the same thing happen to music.
The attempt to push through that big deal with Google seemed to indicate willingness on the part of the publishers to be part of the new order of things. The fact remains that booksellers are actually excited about the future of publishing, the money to be made, the markets to be reached, and so on. The fact that a report like this can be published without any kind of bitter commentary on the decline of paper books is telling.
Piracy will in fact be a part of the bookmaker’s lot soon, as well; indeed, it’s already a problem, according to some. With greater sales of e-readers comes greater piracy and the threat of lost income, as the music industry have gone through, but of course you can’t lose what you never had, and their disingenuous calculations of piracy’s effects poison their credibility.
Changing the container we get our words in is a natural change, and this level growth should continue, or even accelerate, over the next few years. A $99 Kindle, ad-supported or not, will push another few million of the things out the door, and technological advancements like flexible devices have yet to make their impact. And unlike the record industry, booksellers are itching to get their hands on these new product vectors.
The market won’t begin to settle down until e-readers are as popular as mobile phones and PCs, which I believe will happen despite the threat of tablets. Once the device class reaches a reasonable level of saturation, then the real battle begins. This growth is the storm before the storm.
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