eBooks Nearly Outsell Print Books At Amazon

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 28, 2011 @11:35AM from the if-only-we-could-operate-books-using-oil dept.

destinyland writes "Thursday Amazon.com announced that they're selling more ebooks than paperback books — and three times as many ebooks as hardcovers. If you combine their statistics into a pie chart, it shows that 45% of all the books Amazon sells are now ebooks. And Amazon's statistic doesn't include all the free ebooks people are downloading to their Kindles, so if just one user downloads a free ebook for every nine paid ebook purchases — then Amazon is already delivering more digital ebooks than they are print editions." Another reader tips an interview with Brian Altounian, CEO of ebook marketplace WOWIO, in which he discusses an encroaching feature that ebook aficionados love to hate: ads.

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Keep in mind by c0d3g33k · 2011-01-28 11:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

That Amazon does not represent the entire book market - they sell to a subset of customers that don't mind getting their books online. The fact that a significant portion of those customers are equally happy with ebooks isn't exactly a revelation. There are still a lot of people out there who prefer to buy real books, whether or not the big bookstores are catering to them.
Re:Kindle owner by rudy_wayne · 2011-01-28 11:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

As long as the Kindle has the ability to remotely delete books, they can go fuck themself.
Re:I will accept ads by Obyron · 2011-01-28 11:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

And I'll never buy another eBook the first time I see an ad in one. We balance out. Books are about immersion, and having ads will ruin it for me.

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--Obyron