IDPF: eBook Sales Surge in Q2 2008

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) today published its latest trade ebook sales figures for the quarter ending June 2008. Wholesale trade ebook revenues for the month of June surged 43% to $11.6 million compared to $8.1 million in the same period a year ago, while sales for the first six months of 2008 grew 43% compared to the same period a year ago.

Trade eBook sales were $4,900,000 for June 2008 alone, an 87.4% increase over June 2007.

Bottom line, folks, ebook sales are accelerating in the marketplace, yet they still represent a small piece of the overall book publishing industry pie.

Some notes about the data above: 1. The data is US-only. 2. The data reflects wholesale sales as reported by 12-15 leading publishers, so actual sales figures to customers were probably approximately twice those reported here.

For self-published indie authors, the data above sends a clear message that if your book isn't available in ebook form, you could be missing out on an important sales channel. If you haven't yet published your book on Smashwords, go ahead and do it. It takes 5 minutes or less and you control all aspects of marketing, pricing and sampling.

IDPF Reports April ebook Sales for April up 19.9%

The IDPF, in conjunction with the AAP, has announced trade ebook sales for the month of April were $3.4 million, up 19.9% over the same month a year ago.

As always, they note, "Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts." The data is collected from 12-15 publishers and covers the US market only.

While ebook sales remain paltry compared to the overall book market, we continue to view such growth as further validation that ebooks are are on the rise and will continue to account for an ever-increasing percentage of the book market.

I believe the sales figures *do not* include sales of Amazon Kindle titles. Can anyone confirm this?

IDPF Reports Wholesale Ebook Sales Up 35%

The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), a non-profit industry group, reported this week that U.S. wholesale ebook revenues grew to $10.1 million in the first quarter of 2008, up 35% over the same period a year ago and up an impressive 23% sequentially over the fourth quarter of 2007. Since these are wholesale numbers, actual retail sales could be up to twice the reported figures.

Are we starting to see the impact of ebook sales through the Amazon Kindle?

Separately today, Barnes & Noble, the country's largest book seller, announced a 1.1 % decline in same store sales and lowered revenue forecasts for the remainder of the year. See the press release here and read the earnings conference call transcript here.