Random House Digital Sales are Booming

Posted on December 20, 2010

Publisher's Weekly reports on the letter Random House sent to its employees at year end.

Chairman Markus Dohle said that Random House is having a strong fourth quarter, which should make for a good report for fiscal 2010. Random has a global focus these days, and Dohle emphasized that in his letter. He also reported that ebook sales are booming. During the fall, ebook sales accounted for almost half of the first week sales figures for many of Random House's books. And that's just the beginning: he predicted another huge jump in ebook sales to come. PW reports:

Although he offered no predictions for 2011, Dohle expects big gains in digital sales worldwide, "with the coming proliferation of e-reading devices and e-bookstores in Germany, the U.K., Spain, and Latin America," and for continued strong sales of 2010 releases by Lee Child, Umberto Eco, Nora Ephron, Ina Garten, John Grisham, Stephen Hawking, Laura Hillenbrand, Lauren Kate, Nigella Lawson, Tim M�lzer and Eckart Witzigmann, Barack Obama, Terry Pratchett, and Jay-Z.

Random House published the two bestselling nonfiction books of the year: George W. Bush's Decision Points and -- in Germany -- Deutschland Schafft Sich Ab by banker Thilo Sarrazin.