Publishers report boost from e-books
E.L. James holding a copy of her book Fifty Shades of Grey, which sold over 70 million copies globally. Erotic trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey helped drive print and e-book sales in Britain to record levels in 2012 with publishers hailing figures as proof...
[attach id="252072" size="medium"]E.L. James holding a copy of her book Fifty Shades of Grey, which sold over 70 million copies globally.[/attach]
Erotic trilogy Fifty Shades of Grey helped drive print and e-book sales in Britain to record levels in 2012 with publishers hailing figures as proof that digital books are not killing the traditional market quite yet.
Print and e-book sales rose four per cent to £3.3 billion (€3.9 billion) after slipping two per cent in 2011, top British trade organisation The Publishers Association said, although printed book sales fell one per cent and had dropped five per cent in 2011.
Chief executive Richard Mollet said the overall rise was driven by a 21 per cent jump in fiction sales to £674 million (€798.8 million), fuelled by demand for E.L. James’s trilogy, a sadomasochistic story of student and businessman Christian Grey.
The books, published by Bertelsmann-owned Random House, sold over 70 million copies globally and were lampooned by critics.
They are set to be made into a film, and sparked other sales of a growing genre of fiction dubbed ‘mummy porn’.
“You can see in the world around you the growth in e-readers,” said Mollet, pointing to commuters engrossed in Amazon kindles, iPads and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.
“But what is interesting is that the continued growth of digital books does not seem to be eating away at physical sales.”
Fiction sales buoyed the print market, which nevertheless dipped to €3.47 billion, and helped to more than double e-book sales to 216 million, he said. Digital books accounted for about 12 per cent of 2012 sales, up from eight per cent in 2011 and five per cent in 2010.
The global book industry that was estimated to be worth €92 billion in 2011 is forecast to grow to €131 billion by 2017, according to a report by market research firm Lucintel.
Mollet said digital sales, for e-books, audiobook downloads and online subscriptions, jumped 66 per cent in 2012 to £411 million (€487 million) with fiction sales up 149 per cent.
Philip Jones, editor of industry magazine The Bookseller, said fiction was the trailblazer for the shift to digital and it was key to now watch how print sales were affected as more non-fiction and children’s titles were sold in digital formats.