It's all Jeff Bezos's fault!...er, I mean...we should all thank Jeff Bezos!
Remember that whole, “…yeah, but I like books, I like the feel of it in my hands, I like to turn the pages.”
Guess we’re over that.
As yet another sign that the world is going digital, Amazon just announced that their Kindle book sales now surpass all print books–hardcover and paperback combined. The announcement–which is half announcement, half advertisement (it mentions 4 times that the new Kindle with Special Offers is just $114)–mentions that hardcover book sales were surpassed in July 2010 and paperback sales in January 2011. Kindle book sales in 2011 are currently triple what they were this time last year. This year so far, the burgeoning Kindle sales combine with sales from print to give Amazon’s US books the fastest year-over-year growth rate in over 10 years. That includes both units and dollars. Amazon introduced the UK Kindle Store only last year, yet Kindle books there are already outpacing hardcover books more than 2 to 1.
Note that the sales numbers include only paid books and do not include the many out-of-copyright books that Kindle offers for free. However, they do include Kindle books that are used on non-Kindle readers such as iPads, so Kindle’s booming success isn’t all about Kindle.
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