Ebooks have had a blast in the beginning of this year. Following a Christmas in which Santa shared around a great amount of ebook readers, ebooks accounted for 10 to 15 per cent of total book sales. This trend, however, is not without consequences for books published on paper. Looking at the graph that represents data gathered by the Association of American Publishers, the steep growth in ebook sales cuts into the market for printed books. At this year’s London Book Fair, Penguin CEO John Makinson was quoted saying :“We are seeing in the US that the ebook may completely displace the mass-market paperback.”

Until recently, ebooks were mostly a niche phenomenon. Frequent travellers are heavy ebook users and the categories business books and romance books were successful niches. This year, use is expected to open up and leave not category untouched.

This market shift goes deeper than just changing medium that carries the book’s contents. In the shift to ebooks, publishers will deal more and more with powerful technology firms that have little interest in the art of making and marketing books. Furthermore, publishers will increasingly need to build direct relations with the audience of their books, as intermediaries play a less important role or sometimes disappear from the scene altogether. After hundreds of years of stability, ebooks shake up the market structure of book publishing.

Ebooks will not only replace printed books but also books published as apps will suffer from the increasing popularity of ebooks. Apps are too expensive to provide the publishing sector with a good alternative to paperback publishing. Ebooks however, do provide a fitting alternative.

Source: PaidContent