E-book sales have reached record levels, and revenues are way up, according to a report by the Open eBook Forum (OeBF), an international organization that monitors trades and standards for the e-publishing industry.
Unit sales grew 46 percent to 421,955, while revenues were up 28 percent to $3.23 million, compared to the same quarter in 2003, according to OeBF. Twenty-four of the leading e-book publishers and retailers submit data to the OeBF, which uses the data to compile its report. The eBook Statistics Report is a quarterly report released by Open eBook Forum.
"This quarter, e-books have hit a high mark for sales," says Steve Potash, president of the OeBF. In fact, e-books are now the fastest growing segment of the publishing industry, he says.
Mike Violano, vice president and general manager of eReader.com, attributes the growth to new audience segments, especially among women who are now reading e-books. Violano says his site has experienced a spike in traffic recently that has contributed to the increase in e-book sales.
The OeBF also released its bestseller list for May. Among the top sellers on the list was "The Da Vinci Code," by Dan Brown, which remained on top of the forum's e-book bestseller list for May, marking the third straight month it has registered at number one. Other titles in the Top 10 include "The Da Vinci Code: Fact or Fiction," by Hank Hanegraaff and Paul L. Maier; Brown's "Angels & Demons" and "The Rule of Four," by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason.
www.OpeneBook.org