Ebook Sales Expected to Top $10 Million in 2003

Posted on October 17, 2003

Churning steadily just below the high profile of the music industry's digital drama, electronic publishing has quietly become a major force in the worlds of media and technology. In the first half of this year, alone, ebook sales revenues are up by 30% and unit sales up by 40% over the same period in 2002. This compares to an annual growth rate of just about 5% in traditional print publishing. The Open eBook Forum (OeBF), an electronic publishing industry trade and standards organization, recently revealed statistics on the current state of ebooks in a new quarterly report.

"Those of us in the industry have been seeing real signs of growth from every direction," said OeBF Executive Director Nick Bogaty. "Libraries are a huge growth category as they look to revitalize themselves in the age of Google; school systems are finding that today's kids like to read when the media is digital; and consumers are snatching up better devices and more titles as fast as they can. But until now, all of the evidence of growth has been anecdotal. The goal of this program is to put some concrete numbers behind the successes we're seeing in this maturing industry."

In compiling the data, the OeBF subdivided the electronic publishing industry into two categories: retailers and publishers. In instances where publishers sold ebooks directly to consumers, their sales data was reported in the retailer category and their publishing data was reported in the publishing category. Among the study's findings are:

Retailers:

Unit Sales: A total of 660,991 ebooks have been sold by retailers in the first half of 2003, a 40% increase over the same period in 2002, during which time 471,995 units were sold.
Number of Titles Available: The total number of ebooks on sale has increased to 280,590 year-to-date, a 144% increase over the same period in 2002, during which time 114,736 were available.
Revenues: $4,965,171 in sales have been logged by retailers in the first half of 2003, a 30% increase over the same period in 2002 during which time retailers made $3,828,250 on sales of ebooks.

Publishers:

Unit Sales: A total of 620,277 ebooks have been sold by publishers in the first half of 2003, a 60% increase over the same period of 2002, during which time 388,589 units were sold.
Number of Titles Published: The total number of ebooks published year-to-date is 3,614, a 45% increase over the same period in 2002, during which time 2,485 titles were published.
Revenues: $3,637,046 in sales have been logged by publishers in the first half of 2003, a 29% increase over the same period in 2002 during which time publishers made $2,815,488 on sales of ebooks.

"At the retail level, the ebook industry is not unlike the traditional print business of twenty years ago," said Scott Pendergrast, co-owner of Fictionwise.com. "Innovative companies who understand the medium and deliver added value to customers can carve out a healthy business. Fictionwise.com is experiencing explosive growth and we'll sell a million dollars worth of ebooks in 2003."

The survey was conducted over a period of two weeks, with participating companies submitting data through a secure, password-protected website maintained by the OeBF. The survey methodology and data aggregation process was developed and supervised by Chartula, Inc., an independent consultant retained by the OeBF. The OeBF will collect and release statistics on an ongoing quarterly basis. The next report will contain statistics for Q3 2003.