[LINK] "E-book sales plateau while print books hold place in readers' hearts"

[rfmcdonald]

CBC's Laura MacNaughton and Renee Filippone write about the relative lack of in-road made by e-books. I'm inclined to think, myself, that e-books and print books might occupy different niches, at least for the time being. (As always with e-book statistics, be wary about their validity.)

When e-books were first introduced more than a decade ago it appeared that print was in danger, but that so-called death of the physical book hasn't happened.

According to the Association of American Publishers, U.S. e-book sales during the first five months of 2015 declined by 10.3 per cent.

BookNet Canada has done consumer research around e-books sales in Canada and found that sales on this side of the border are not going up.

"What we are seeing in Canada is that over the last year or so, two years, it's been a ... plateauing of the e-book numbers," said BookNet Canada CEO Noah Genner.

Genner urged caution over the low sales numbers being reported in the U.S. suggesting that they aren't all inclusive and only take into account e-book sales by the big publishers.

"There is a whole other piece of the market that isn't reported into those AAP numbers and that's self-published authors and micro-publishers and even some indie publishers. And so they may be doing very very well in digital," said Genner.