Ebook Trends: The Year of Living Digitally

Digital adoption in higher education, however, has taken a different route altogether. Industry analyst Steve Paxhia of Beacon Digital Strategies noted that education publishers—traditionally known for selling print content at very high price points—are beginning to switch not to selling e­book versions of this content, but to offering interactive systems. “By switching their emphasis to integrated learning systems, which have an inherently more reliable revenue model, education publishers can afford to offer related content, both print and digital, at a significantly lower price. Trade publishers just don’t have that kind of leverage.” Paxhia co-authors a Book Industry Study Group (BISG) bi-annual report documenting changes in students’ interaction with print and digital curriculum. [3]

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Consumer Attitudes

Since 2009, BISG has also reported on consumer e­book reading and purchase behavior. [4] The report surveys show that changes in portable device use continue to influence e­book adoption behavior. Just as Amazon’s successful blending of dedicated e-readers with its e-commerce prowess sparked a rise in narrative fiction e­books, so too are more complex devices beginning to drive nonfiction readers toward the e­book format. From early 2010 through mid-2011, dedicated e-readers displaced PCs as respondents’ most preferred device for reading e­books. However, the subsequent rise of tablet devices—led primarily by Amazon’s Kindle Fire—has changed the field again. The next report, out in March, shows tablets and dedicated e-readers at 43.9% and 42%, respectively. (See Table 1.)

The BISG study also provides insights into the book genres most affected by the e­book format. Fiction, particularly “guilty pleasure” fiction (e.g., mystery, romance) shows a rise in e­book popularity corresponding to the dominance of dedicated e-readers through mid-2011. However, while general fiction e­books seem to have tapered off with the rise of tablets, other fiction types appear to be recovering as e­book-preferred genres. (See Table 2.)