The Kindle keeps growing in popularity. Amazon is slated to sell over 12 million of these devices in 2011 alone, the best year yet for the e-reader. Many people continue to move toward electronic content over paper content, and Kindle books have now surpassed sales of physical books, and by far.
As of May of this year, Amazon sells three times the amount of Kindle books compared to physical books. They also sell 6 Kindles for every 10 physical books they sell. Looking at those numbers, you would really come to believe that e-books are taking over! However, that might not be completely the case.
As of this year, physical print materials still make up 93% of the market when it comes to purchases. Only 7% are e-books. This is a much smaller number than most people guess when you ask them about the use of e-books as compared to printed materials.
However, e-book sales are trending upward. Seven percent is the highest number so far, and with those 12 million Kindles heading out the door over at Amazon tis year, the number has to just be going up and up over time. I think one of the holdups to the growth of ebooks is the hesitance of many publishing companies to move in that direction. Once most of the maor publishing companies, especially magazines and newspapers get on bore and start pushing their electronic products, it will take off even more.
I think magazines might be the slowest product to "go e-book." People are still used to grabbing them and keeping them next to their bed, in their bathroom, etc. They are also used to all the color pictures, which of course you cannot get right now on many of the e-readers out there, including the Kindle, since they have what is known as an e-ink screen on them.
Newspapers might take a while to come around as well. However, many newspaper companies are moving toward online content and toward content that is on e-readers, so it might not take as long as I think! I know that I read my local newspaper on my Kindle, and I get every edition daily for a few bucks a month.
I do not think we will see the death of the printed word anytime soon, however. With 93% of the share, it is going to take a while. However, I do expect the e-book market to top the overall paper book market over the next few years!
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