To Infinity and Beyond
Room for Growth
Bogaty also points out that while the market for e-books in Asia is about the same as it is in the United States, the European market is about half that of the U.S. market.
He adds that some of the advantages e-books have over printed hardcover and paperback books are sure to grow the market in the United States and overseas. These advantages include portability, the costs of production and shipping associated with a printed book, and the easy and rapid ability to update e-books.
He also notes that growth niches for e-books include corporate knowledge centers, and university and other academic library systems. Within these niches, he adds, the K-12 and higher education sectors offer the greatest potential for growth. Overdrive, which deals with more than 400 book publishers, distributes in excess of 50,000 e-book titles and is adding several thousand new titles per month.
According to Mike Violano, vice president and general manager of eReader.com, a division of mobile content publisher Motricity Inc. of Durham, N.C., eReader.com accounts for half of the $15 million domestic market. eReader.com offers 14,400 titles from more than 100 publishers. It targets individuals who haven't tried e-books to grow its customer base.
"Eighteen months ago," Violano says, "we carried few romance novels. The thinking was that e-book readers were more technology-oriented. Since then, we have added 1,000 romance titles, and now it is our third-largest sales category. The best-selling category is suspense thrillers such as 'The DaVinci Code,' and our second-largest sales category is science fiction."
Violano adds that eReader.com offered the script for "Star Wars: Episode III—Revenge of the Sith" in the science fiction category as an exclusive when the movie premiered.
Other popular categories include 'Best Sellers in Print,' such as the 'World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century.' In the reference category, the best-selling e-book is the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition.
