Another data point for the growth of the eBook market comes from data released from Amazon.com:

“Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books–astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months,” according to Amazon.com CEO Jeff Bezos.

And Kindle eBook sales are accelerating:

• Over the past 3 months Amazon has sold 143 Kindle eBooks for every 100 hardcover books
• Over the past month, Amazon has sold 180 Kindle eBooks for every 100 hardcover books
• Amazon sold more than three times as many Kindle eBooks in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009
• The Association of American Publishers’ (AAP) latest data reports that e-book sales grew 163 percent in the month of May and 207 percent year-to-date through May. Kindle book sales in May and year-to-date through May exceeded those growth rates.

This is across Amazon.com’s entire U.S. book business and includes sales of hardcover books where there is no Kindle edition. Free Kindle books are excluded and if included would make the numbers even higher. What’s interesting is that this is with a relatively modest book inventory: 630,000 eBooks, with an additional 1.8 million out-of-copyright e-books made available for free.  It also clearly coincides with the growth in sales of the Kindle itself — device unit sales accelerated each month in the second quarter–both on a sequential month-over-month basis and on a year-over-year basis.  (Unlike Apple, Amazon still won’t disclose exactly how many Kindles have been sold.  Isn’t it about time they did?)  It stands to reason, more people with the device… more eBook sales. However it is outpacing hardcovers. And one would think there are many more people available to buy hardcovers than eBooks.  It hasn’t yet outsold paperbacks, which may be the larger of the three types of books.

Publishers are still highly selective in publishing eBook titles because they still lack the infrastructure to quickly and easily put out all books as both hardcover and eBooks.  There are many more books that could potentially be e-published, especially if they had better eBook publishing and distribution processes.  It illustrates both just how far the industry has come, and just how fare it is from getting to “long-tail” eBook publishing.

The continued rapid growth of eBooks is further underscored by the AAPs year-to-date data for eBooks sales:  The 13 submitting publishers to that category currently comprise 8.48 % of the total trade books market, compared to 2.89% percent for the same period last year — triple the growth of last year and nearing double digits — a marker for the industry that there is real money to be made in eBook, and companies that lack an eBook strategy could miss out on this increasingly significant revenue stream.

It is interesting to note that, compared to last year, people are purchasing more books, period.  Perhaps it is a sign of the improving economy, or perhaps it is an indication that people (especially adults) are reading more in general. The data is unclear on the reason.  What is clear is that eBooks continue to grow in popularity, and are unquestionably here to stay.

I was recently asked:

Is there anything you can share about how the file management needs differ from the way a publisher use a DAM?  I would think there would be a lot more transfers of very files (i.e. high resolution print-ready PDFs) and much, much less internal activity involving small files (i.e. photos, production files, etc.)

In general, yes, printers are working with and transferring large print-ready files.  Some of these can be hundreds of megabytes in size and so there can be significant concern in working with clients around bandwidth and the time it takes to send and upload the file.  However, internally on a local network, the size of the file is less of an issue.  But in general they tend to work with whole files and less frequently with the individual pieces — unless they’re doing specific touch up and color correction work on individual assets contained in the final work.

However, in some cases, printers provide DAM as a service to their clients.  They manage the assets on behalf of the client, providing browser-based access to not just the final print ready files, but in some cases the QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign layouts, and both the hi- and low-res components (e.g., photos, graphics, images, fonts, etc.).  In this way, DAM allows them to offer additional or “value-added” services to their clients.

Publishers are a bit different.  They generally use DAM as an internal repository to maintain all of the elements in the publication (e.g., magazine or book), as well as the layout file, and the finished work.  So they are often working with both the large and the smaller files.   However it can vary across publishers. In some cases, a DAM is used as an integral part of the editorial process – where work in progress, all the individual components as well as the layouts and versions of both are kept.  Others may use DAM primarily for storage and distribution management of finished works.  Some use it for both.

Note that “Publishers” may also be either magazine or book publishers.  Magazine publishers typically have a broader range of content than book publishers (so far… but this is changing too) as they often have both print and Web versions of their content, have needs to support both workflows (which are different), and may have exclusive content for the web or mobile devices (e.g., video, audio, and other rich media hanging around) that is updated more frequently. The DAM provides a common repository for feeding both kinds of workflows, for grouping and categorizing related content, for finding other relevant assets that could be used in a developing story, and for distributing to both a web content management system (Web CMS) as well as to individuals, partners, channels, video streaming servers or mobile distribution platforms.

As well, for magazines in particular, they may be working with purchased or rights-controlled images, so managing the expiration and use of them in a publication or publications is critical.  Using an image out of its purchased rights can be extremely costly.  So the DAM helps in a way that printers typically don’t use it. In summary, publishing use is potentially a broader set of use cases, media types, workflows and file sizes (e.g. working with large video files… at least the initial master versions before they’re reformatted or transcoded for distribution).

Book publishers are typically working with a more limited range of content — photos, images, graphics, and fonts.  Now, as eBooks begin to incorporate more interactivity, the book publishing workflows and asset management challenges move towards those of magazine, web publishing and potentially “interactive applications”, and will require working with and managing a broader range of file types, components and workflows.

Lastly, note that print and publishing workflows vary a bit as well.  Print may use the assets in touchup, color correction and other pre-press workflows, perhaps with some limited review and approval with the client.  Publishers often use it in creative as well as review and approval workflows, and distribution workflows — which may embargo information until a set date and release it directly to particular people, partners or distribution channels (including to web sites and direct mobile devices).  It can be used this way too for print and eBooks books, where the distribution processes may include direct to the consumer and more frequent updates.

Feel free to keep the questions coming.

Apparently Wiley has released an eReader comparison tool intended to allow buyers to compare the right reader for the right person. This is novel and perhaps needed, but it seems to me to miss an important point: Content.

Sure you can compare the devices based on what features they have, whether they are color or black and white, wireless or not, can read the book to you or allow you to read in the dark.

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While eBooks represent less than 3% of total book sales, a new and ongoing study by the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) examining “consumer attitudes toward e-book reading” recently presented at the Tools of Change for Publishing conference revealed some statistics that are shaping the early market:

• Nearly 45% of buyers who have started acquiring eBooks mostly or exclusively purchase eBooks over print books
• Affordability is paramount
• The PC is currently the most-used device for reading an eBook (47%), followed by Amazon Kindle (32%), then the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch (21%)

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The Association of American Publishers (AAP), in conjunction with the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), released eBook sales statistics for December 2009. Trade eBook sales were $19,100,000 for December, a 119.7% increase over December 2008 ($8,700,000). Calendar Year to Date sales are up + 176.2%.

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