Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Are book shelf makers the new buggy whip makers?

The publishing tide is shifting fast: E-book sales in February topped all other formats, including paperbacks and hardcovers, according to an industry report released this week, CNNMoney reports.
E-book sales totaled $90.3 million in February, up 202% compared to the same month a year earlier, according to a study from the Association of American Publishers. That put e-books at No. 1 "among all categories of trade publishing" that month -- the first time e-books have beaten out traditional publishing formats.
Blame it on Santa Claus.
The AAP report attributed February's strong numbers to a post-holiday e-book buying surge by consumers who received e-readers devices as gifts.
Even bigger changes are coming, one industry insider says.
Earlier this month, Barnes & Noble executive Marc Parrish forecast that traditional book retailers have just two years to adapt to an e-book-centric industry. 
"The book business is changing more radically now, and quicker, than movies or music or newspapers have, because we're doing it in a matter of months," Parrish said at GigaOm's Structure Big Data conference in New York. "[The] next 24 months is when this business will totally shift."
What am I going to use to prop the door open?

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