E-book sales are rising to offset a decline in physical book purchases, but only in volume, according to the latest Books & Consumers survey. With the lower price points of e-books versus their print counterparts, the value of book sales is shrinking, the report further says. The survey is an ongoing study of the habits of British book buyers by category experts at BML, a Bowker business.
The Books & Consumers survey shows that in the 48 weeks ending November 27, 2011, compared to the same period the previous year, British consumers’ purchases of physical books declined by 4 percent, with value down some 6 percent. However, with e-book purchases included, the total consumer book market grew very slightly in volume terms, up 0.4 percent, with a market value drop of 3 percent overall.
The survey also looks at how the e-book industry fares by genre. The adult fiction market saw spectacular e-book growth in 2011, up from 2.8 percent of purchases in the four weeks ending December 26, 2010 to 12.5 percent in the four weeks to November 27, 2011. But again, as e-books are being bought for lower prices, they accounted for only 7.1 percent of adult fiction spending in the latest period.
Full 2011 results from the Books & Consumers survey will be released at BML Bowker’s annual conference on March 29, 2012 in Central London.
The survey seeks to measure consumer book purchasing of both adult and children’s print and e-books from all sources. The data above are taken from the Quarterly Bulletin for 48 weeks to November 27, 2011 and the Ebook Monitor for 12 weeks to the same date.
In addition to monitoring e-book purchasing via Books & Consumers, researchers at BML Bowker are currently conducting an international study, the Global eBook Monitor, in partnership with Pearson, Tata Consultancy Services, Book Industry Study Group (BISG) and A.T. Kearney. This study will compare and contrast e-book purchasing and growth in countries around the world, including the UK, US, Australia, India, Brazil, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France and Spain. Results from this will be released in April. Additional contextual information on e-book discovery, buying behaviour and future buying intentions in the UK are being investigated via BML Bowker’s research project, Understanding the Digital Consumer, now in its second year.
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