amounted to nearly 30% of all units sold, according to a report today from Publisher's Marketplace.The popular subscription-based book industry website's mid-day newsletter is reporting that "Knopf Doubleday spokesman Paul Bogaards says their internal figures show an approximate first week sell-through of 425,000 units--which includes 125,000 ebook editions."
If we do the math for ourselves, this translates into a 29.4 percent ebook share of the title's total sell-through, which would be by far the largest percentage yet reported for ebook sales of a major trade bestseller.
By comparison, published reports of the total ebook sell-through for Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol
last year put it at less than 10 percent of the title's overall sales, despite the fact that ebook sales outperformed hardcover sales on the Amazon.com website for several weeks.At that time, many observers believed that the Kindle Store accounted for 85 percent or more of the ebook content market. Although it is widely assumed that Apple's launch of the iPad and the iBooks store would cut into Kindle content market share, none of Larsson's bestselling books are available from the iBooks Store due to the decision by Random House to stay clear of Apple's agency price-fixing model.
Instead, it appears that, at least in this case, Amazon and Barnes & Noble may be the biggest bookselling beneficiaries of the phenomenal popularity of the iPad, which sold 2 million units in its first 59 days. Both Amazon and B&N have popular ebook platforms for the iPad, and unlike Apple, they actually stock Larsson's books.
Publishing industry observers have been fond of saying that print books still account for over 90 percent of all book sales, and that any tipping point for ebook sales is still a long way off.
We will not be hearing such pronouncements much longer.
5 comments:
Nailed it on the head once again! With realistic pricing from Random House ($9.99), they have demonstrated what the Sony rep is now seeing (see Teleread.org) That digital will surpass print within 5 years. I think it is closer to 3.5 years.
But NOT at the ridiculous Penguin prices ("Atlas Shrugged" at $18.00 more than paperback!)
Rick Askenase
I wonder if one of the reasons for the ebook popularity of Larsson's third book in his trilogy has something to do with the success of the first two as ebooks. I read #1 and #2 in ebook form, so it was logical for me to pre-order it in the same format. Notice I said "one of the reasons." Undoubtedly another reason is that ebooks make reading (for me) a pleasure once again; no more books to make my hands hurt as I try to hold them. Another reason: the price is right!
Well, another and perhaps primary reason for the success of "Hornet's Nest" would be that the book is just a darned good read.
That goes without saying. My comment referred to the topic of electronic sales versus hard cover.
“Publishing industry observers have been fond of saying that print books still account for over 90 percent of all book sales, and that any tipping point for ebook sales is still a long way off.
We will not be hearing such pronouncements much longer. ”
The author compares ONE week of sales ALL of sales for Lost Symbol:
“By comparison, published reports of the total ebook sell-through for Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol last year put it at less than 10 percent of the title’s overall sales, despite the fact that ebook sales outperformed hardcover sales on the Amazon.com website for several weeks.”
Counting ebook chickens before they are hatched is quite the hobby these days. I just wish folks did it with more skill.
Also, the author calls Apple’s model “price fixing”, after Amazon had a major battle with Macmillan over Amazon’s refusal to let Macmillan set its own pricing of its ebooks. And has not Amazon spoken of adopting Apple’s agency model? Biased much, dear author?
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