

Adult fiction ebooks outsold hardcovers in 2011: survey
by Christine Kearney (Reuters)
Electronic books more than doubled in popularity in 2011, with ebooks outselling hardcover books in adult fiction for the first time, according to a survey released on Wednesday.
Net sales of e-books jumped to 15 percent of the market in 2011 from 6 percent in 2010, according to a report by the Association of American Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group. The groups compiled data provided by nearly 2,000 publishers…
While ebooks increased in strength, bringing in more than $2 billion in 2011, the majority of publishers’ revenue still came from print books, with $11.1 billion in 2011…
Ebooks have been growing in popularity for the past several years, even after major publishers were initially slow to embrace digital formats.
According to the report, in the adult fiction category, e-books accounted for 30 percent of total net publisher sales compared to a 13 percent share the year before.
Adult fiction ebooks beat hardcovers for the first time, however the combined print formats including hardcover, trade paperback and mass market paperback still had more revenue than ebooks.
“Ebooks have demonstrated unprecedented acceptance among readers but the various print formats remain dynamic as well, showing that consumers want options,” Vlahos said.
In other words, there’s no story here. At least not one that fits the headline Reuters gave it. Why make an announcement of sales figures into a pseudo-conflict between eBooks and print and then further emphasize a non-existent “winner?” Oh, OldMedia, why can’t you play fair? Is it because you know you’re doomed?
Hmm, our last sentence just showed that there really is a conflict after all. Sorry, folks, we’ll just tiptoe away…
EDITED TO ADD: Okay, okay, we confess! The only reason we ran this was because we wanted to do the thing with those two pics and their captions. Man, life sucks when you get caught. Damn.