Digital Book Sales Soar In UK

The sale of digital books is soaring in the UK as more people use book-readers like Amazon's Kindle and the iPad.

Figures have been released by the Publishers Association. They show that in 2010 downloads of eBooks and audio books in the "general titles" category, which includes novels and consumer titles, shot up from £4-million to £16-million.

Academic and professional eBooks still dominated overall digital sales, which reached £180-million last year.

Total book sales - digital and paper - totalled £13.1-billion.

Richard Mollet, chief executive of the Publishers Association, said: "Digital publishing is growing at an impressive rate in whichever part of the sector you choose to look.

"Now that technology is putting e-reading devices into consumers' hands, we are starting to see the rapid growth of digital sales in this area too, as consumer publishers develop digital formats to reach wider audiences."

In the US, eBooks sold more than paperbacks and hardbacks in February.

(Via: BBC)


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