English Language eBookMarketsThe following overview provides key data for thetwo leading English markets, those of the USand the UK, as a benchmark for a more in-depthrepresentation of trends and developments inplaces where English is not the first language ofthe average reader.United StatesUpdate spring 2014Sales of US publishers in 2013 accounted for $15 billion,up 1% from 2012. (trade and educational, AAP, StatShot12,2013, issued 13 February 2014)Sales of print books in 2013 have dropped by 2.5 percentin units, with adult fiction decreasing even b 11.2 percent.By format, mass trade paperbacks declined by 9.1 percent,while hardcover had been largely flat. (-0.2 percent, accordingto Nielsen BookScan, quoted in Publishers Weekly,3 January 2014).Total ebook sales had been largely flat, atrising by 3.8% to$1.3 billion. (AAP Statshots, April 2014)eBooks comprise 23.3% of trade sales through October2013; compared to 21% of trade sales for all of 2012. Forthe total market (trade and education), ebook revenuesaccounted for 13% in 2012. (AAP monthly statistics reports,quoted by Publishers Lunch, 10 January 2014; AAP/BISGBookstats, 2013).In terms of channels, online accounts for 44 percent of allsales, including ebook, according to Bowker. (in 2012, upfrom 39 percent in 2011, quoted in DBW, 6 August 2013)26% of publishers direct revenues are coming from onlineretail. (Value for 2012, AAP/BISG,BookStats 2013.)A PEW survey on reading found a slight rise in reading,probably due to the spread of ebooks, with 76 percent ofadults having read at least one book in the previous 12months, with a vast majority of ebook readers also readingprinted works, and only 4 percent reading digital only. Halfof all adult Americans now own a tablet computer (up from43 percent in September 2013, and 32 also have a dedicatedereader. (Quoted in Publishers Weekly, 16 January2014).Ebooks have become a “normal means of consuming content”,had been a summary by the Book Industry StudyGroup, BISG, together with Nielsen Book Research, withebooks accounting for 30% of units and 14% of sales bythe second quarter of 2013. However, after the initial dramaticgrowth in ebook sales, this curve had slightly dippedafter the first quarter of 2013, bringing ebooks now “in thelater stages of the innovation curve and have settled intoreasonably predictable consumption patterns”, accordingto Jo Henry of Nielsen. The study confirmed the huge marketshare of Amazon in ebooks, as it was the primary sourcefor ebook purchases for 67 percent of the respondents.(BISG, with Nielsen Book Research, quoted in PublishersWeekly, 31 October 2013).2013 and early 2014 had also seen a strong decline in salesof Barnes & Noble’s Nook division, which plunged by 60.5percent in the nine week period before the end of the year,which resulted in major adjustments in the company’sstrategy and organisational structure in early 2014. (PublishersWeekly. See for details in the chapter on GlobalPlayers: Barnes & Noble)23 The Global eBook Report
US: Ebook market evolution 2009 to 2013.Ebooks value, $millionEbooks units(million)Ebooks % oftotal marketEbooks % oftradeAll digital (Ebooks, edu, audiodownloads etc.) % of market2012>2013 473 m 13% 21%2011>2012 3,400 19%2010>2011 2,400 15%2009>2010 1,100 9%SourceAAP/BISGSony, one of the earliest players on the ebook device marketdecided to close its own ebook store and move customersinstead to Kobo’s platform. (Publishers Weekly, 6february 2014).Developments in 2013The debate on the ebook market in the US shifted gearsand focus in 2013. While in previous years, the fast pace ofthe expanding market share of ebooks had hit the headlines,2013 saw more complex patterns emerging.Accounting for 20% of the US trade book market, ebookshave become an essential part of mainstream reading (seeAAP BookStats 2013). By the end of 2012, over 1,000 ebooktitles had been estimated to account for sales of more than25,000 copies each (Publishers Weekly, 18 March 2013).Major trade publishers have reported a market share forebook revenues around the 30% mark (e.g. at Simon &Schuster), and 29% of revenues came from digital booksin the second quarter of 2013, up 39% from the first quarter.Nevertheless, a debate started about a plateau in ebooksales, as the previous strong growth patterns in sales hadcome down in the first half year of 2013 (see e.g. USA Today).The total US trade book market showed a return to solidgrowth of almost 7% in 2012 (while the total US book markethad shrunk again), after a previous slump in the firststages of ebook expansion, and “virtually all of that growthcomes from ebooks rather than print books.” (as reportedby PublishersLunch). In the first quarter of 2013, ebookshelped overall trade publishing to increase by 3.3% (AAPStatshot, as quoted in Publishers Weekly). Ebooks alsocontinuously provide a lively push for US exports, whichincreased in 2012 by 7.2% to $833.389 million, with135,526 million units.By mid 2013, the developments had become more complexthough, as in the first six months of 2013, as “overallebook sales of $731.4 million actually declined - yes, declined(!) - for the first time across such a period, down $40million or 5 percent. But adult ebooks were the singlelargestof seven format breakouts (!) for the first time acrosssuch a period.” (Publishers Lunch, 19 September 2013) Inunits, ebooks accounted for 30% in this period (up from27% in the first half of 2012, according to Bowker, quotedin Publishers Weekly, 20 September 2013).Aside from commercial developments, several legal battlesas well as pricing strategies, notably those of onlineretailer Amazon had a critical impact in shaping the USebook market.On July 10, 2013, a New York court found “by a preponderanceof the evidence that Apple conspired to restraintrade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act,” resultingin higher prices for ebooks, to the disadvantage ofconsumers (see a detailed summary at Publishers Weekly).In the hearings preceding this ruling, Apple had declaredthe company’s market share for ebooks through the iBookstoreat around 20% (, Publishers Lunch, 13 June 132013).The court decision was widely commented as giving Amazona significant advantage to strengthen its position inthe ebook market further, with new challenges with regardto pricing strategies for both print and ebooks anticipated.In late July 2013, for instance, Amazon had decided to discountmajor bestsellers, inlcuding Inferno by Dan Brown,between 50 and 65% in response to a campaign of discountingby Overstock, which subsequently ended theskirmish in early August (see Publishers Weekly, PublishersWeekly, 12 August 12 2013).The other litigation, on Google’s practice of scanning hugenumbers of titles, both in and out of copyright, from libraries,continued to - grind on - in its eigth year, after theThe Global eBook Report 24
- Page 2: ContentsAbout the Global eBook Repo
- Page 5 and 6: • The Bookseller (United Kingdom)
- Page 7 and 8: Executive SummaryThis report provid
- Page 9 and 10: The ambitions, and thelimitations o
- Page 11 and 12: ending requests by email and face t
- Page 13 and 14: Chris Kenneally, Copyright Clearanc
- Page 15: A Global Industry, and Many Local P
- Page 18 and 19: transformation longer than other se
- Page 20 and 21: The Bookish Elites: Market size & n
- Page 22 and 23: Book markets evolution in selected
- Page 24 and 25: Market share of ebooks (in various
- Page 28 and 29: United States (2010-2011 Book Marke
- Page 30 and 31: Ebooks accounted in 2013 for one in
- Page 32 and 33: stores, and 700 Argo stores, as wel
- Page 34 and 35: Metadata is the key to online sales
- Page 36 and 37: EuropeGermanyUpdate spring 2014Afte
- Page 38 and 39: GermanyKey Indicators Values Source
- Page 40 and 41: Ebooks evolve in a complex and chal
- Page 42 and 43: actively seeking Google’s coopera
- Page 44 and 45: SpainKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 46 and 47: early days there. Yet according to
- Page 48 and 49: According to the Danish book trade
- Page 50 and 51: and Amazon is as well. Barnes & Nob
- Page 52 and 53: PolandKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 54 and 55: The emerging role of ebooks in Cent
- Page 56 and 57: Nemokamospdfknygos (Aida Dubkeviči
- Page 58 and 59: play a role for starting to change
- Page 60 and 61: 57 The Global eBook Report
- Page 62 and 63: RussiaKey Indicators Values Sources
- Page 64 and 65: OzonOzon is a general retailer sell
- Page 66 and 67: tribute the PDFs they had received
- Page 68 and 69: a company wants—and it should—t
- Page 70 and 71: also has the fourth largest install
- Page 72 and 73: ChinaKey Indicators Values Sources,
- Page 74 and 75: lion in 2008 to ¥60 million in 201
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The National Book Trust (NBT), the
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tion. Of these, 73% youth are liter
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Wiley were among the first. Much of
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launched with 47 titles, available
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Ebook publishers are faced with the
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Arabia, the situation improves dram
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Contributed articleCopyright Cleara
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Forces Shaping the eBook MarketsA c
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In the current battle over emerging
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Paradoxically, the global expansion
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The Expansion of GlobalPlatformsPub
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Interestingly, all Amazon figures b
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$1.8 billion”, equalling some 8%
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leader in the digital industry thro
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By January 2013, Kobo claimed to ow
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aggressively at €0.99 or €2.99,
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edition of the same titles is still
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Self-publishingUpdate spring 2014In
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continental Europe have launched th
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Goodreads, launched by Otis Chandle
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Regulatory frameworksThe litigation
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Receptiveness for foreign(English)
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suffers not in spite of but because
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entific and professional publishing
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utors. Börsenverein’s own Librek
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sources and blogs promoting and poi
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In France, the independent literary
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eBook Yellow PagesThe eBook Yellow
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dotbooksEdiciones B, founded in Bar
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Neowood Éditions is a French digit
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those who would like to create thei
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about 60,000 ebooks. In November 20
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making the ebook creation and publi
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extended ranges of books and audio
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MyiLibrary is an econtent aggregati
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that publishes RNTS branded digital
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lishers and over 30 sales channels,
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Professional organizationsProfessio
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Advertising in the eBookYellow Page
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The acceleratedtransformation of th
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IndexSymbols100knygu, 13224Symbols,
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INscribe, 139Integral, 139iStoryTim