Demand for E-books on the Increase

Demand for electronic books, or e-books, has created one of the fastest growing Internet consumer market segments.Research conducted recently by the Gartner Group revealed that one in 300 books read in the USA, and one in 450 books in Europe, are read in the digital format. This is a 38% increase on last year, which in turn experienced 25% growth on 2003.

eBook units sold for the first quarter 2004 were up 46% and eBook revenues were up 28% over the same quarter in 2003. These and other figures charting the eBook industry are reported in the quarterly Open eBook Forum (OeBF) eBook Statistics Report.

"At this rate, by 2010, more people will be reading e-books than the old-fashioned paper variety," said Marco Foltran, founder of online e-book retailer eBook Impressions. "The forests will be saved!"

eBooks downloaded using Microsoft Reader, Adobe Reader or Mobipocket Reader are searchable, have handy bookmark features and can be downloaded on average in 2-3 minutes. An average novel is less than 300KB, depending on content, so the average Palm for example can store over 500 ebooks.

Driving the growth of e-books is the soaring cost of paper books -- the average e-book, at $5, is 20% the price of a paperback -- and the vast improvement in the usability of electronic reading devices. According to Foltran, 62% of e-book readers use laptop computers, 17% use personal digital assistants such as BlackBerrys and Palms, 14% use desktop computers and the remaining 7% use dedicated readers. The market is growing fastest in countries where rail and bus commuting is the prevalent means of transport for middle- and upper-income workers. "Reading devices have become a lot cheaper and more portable, and easier on the eye. So they're ideal for someone sitting on a bus for an hour."

Visit: www.ebookimpressions.com

MobyLives

Penguin halts e-books sales to libraries Wall Street Journal AP NEW YORK — Penguin Group (USA), which publishes such best-sellers as Kathryn Stockett's "The Help" and "Elizabeth Gilbert's "Eat, Pray, Love," has stopped selling e-books to libraries. Simon & Schuster, Macmillan and the Hachette Book Group are ... Penguin Ends E-Book Library Lending And Relationship With OverDrivepaidContent.org Penguin US abruptly stops selling ebooks to librariesMobyLives Penguin Stops Selling e-Books to LibrariesPublishers Weekly The Bookseller all 23 news articles »

Small publishers offer ebooks Victoria Times Colonist By Andrew Wooldridge, Times Colonist February 10, 2012 2:38 AM While I appreciate that many consider only publishers of mass-market/bestselling fiction as the source of library books, many smaller independent publishers make ebooks available to ... and more »

Comer Library to offer e-books Daily Home Online The library plans to join an e-book consortium in April, allowing patrons to download e-books from any computer using their library card number. SYLACAUGA — BB Comer Memorial Library plans to offer a paperless book service in the coming months. Jackson Town Column Suzannah Stokes suzannahstokes@hotmail.comConway Daily Sun all 3 news articles »

ITWeb

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Android Central

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Online retailers, not e-books, threat to bookstores ZDNet Asia By Liau Yun Qing , ZDNet Asia on February 10, 2012 (8 hours ago) Cheaper book prices by online bookstores from lower operating costs put pressure on brick-and-mortar bookshop owners aiming to stay in business, say market players, who add e-books not ... and more »

In an effort to cut costs, colleges try e-books Quad City Times Reinartz said she was heartened by seeing larger universities trying out e-books in the classroom. "I think that will make it easier for some of us, who don't have the resources that some of these schools may have, to see how that works," she said.

Forbes

2012: The Year Of New Ebook Tools Forbes The release by Apple of iBooks Author last month begins a year that will see the release of several new tools focused on helping people to create, publish and track their ebooks. Now that Apple have clarified that their EULA does not attempt to claim ... Apple revises iBook Author EULA to say: iGrin and iBear itMobyLives Will iBooks Replace Textbooks in Universities?Patch.com A Textbook Case of iPad Fun With StudyingWall Street Journal U.S. News & World Report all 27 news articles »

E-books by crime writer Jim Thompson coming soon Sacramento Bee AP NEW YORK -- Novels by acclaimed crime writer Jim Thompson are coming out as e-books. Mulholland Books announced Tuesday that "The Killer Inside Me," "The Grifters" and other Thompson classics will be released in digital editions this year. and more »