Slashdot News Story | E-Books Are Only 6% of Printed Book Sales

“MIT’s technology blog argues that ebook sales represent ‘only six pecent of the total market for new books.’ It cites a business analysis which calculates that by mid-July, Amazon had sold 15.6 million hardcover books versus 22 million ebooks, but with sales of about 48 million more paperback books. Amazon recently announced they sell 180 ebooks for every 100 hardcover books, but when paperbacks are counted, ebooks represent just 29.3% of all Amazon’s book sales. And while Amazon holds about 19% of the book market, they currently represent 90% of all ebook sales — suggesting that ebooks represent a tiny fraction of all print books sold. ‘Many tech pundit wants books to die,’ argues MIT’s Christopher Mims, citing the head of Microsoft’s ClearType team, who says ‘I’d be glad to ditch thousands of paper- and hard-backed books from my bookshelves. I’d rather have them all on an iPad.’ But while Nicholas Negroponte predicts the death of the book within five years, Mims argues that ‘it’s just as likely that as the ranks of the early adopters get saturated, adoption of ebooks will slow.'”