E-book sales during the first six months of 2010 were 183% higher than for the equivalent period in 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers. Forrester Research estimated that 11 million Americans would own a digital reading device by the end of September 2010.

It seems that e-book readers are actually encouraging people to read more. Owners of the Amazon Kindle reader are estimated to buy 3.3 times as many books following the purchase of their Kindle than they did before they had their reader.

There’s no doubt that Amazon is the biggest e-book seller at the moment. They have in excess of 700,000 Kindle books to choose from on their website – and there are a further 1.8 million out of copyright books that can be downloaded for free. Amazon has, very cleverly, made a whole range of free apps available for a variety of different devices which lets users read Kindle books without a Kindle reader. This could conceivably impact upon Kindle reader hardware sales – but Amazon are clearly happy to accept this in order to secure sales of Kindle books.

The sales of e-book readers grew exponentially during 2009 – heavily influenced by the release of the Amazon Kindle 2.0 reader in February of that year. They are still a niche product and are just beginning to spread beyond early adopters. Recent price reductions, in response to the release of the Apple iPad which can, amongst numerous other things, be used as an e-book reader, have helped to make e-book readers more appealing to prospective customers.

The Kindle became Amazon’s most gifted item ever during the festive season of 2009. Currently, it’s the top selling item on the Amazon site – and likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. The release of the third generation Kindle at the beginning of August has proved to be a good response to Apple’s iPad – and the Kindle is now selling like hot cakes.

The public has clearly become accustomed to the idea of e-book readers and e-books by now. At the moment it looks like there is sufficient room in the market for both the specialist Kindle and the multi-functional iPad. Only time will tell if this situation will continue, or whether there will be a gradual shift to a more versatile type of e-book reader when Amazon eventually develop color e-ink technology displays,. However, e-books are here to stay, and will make up a larger and larger proportion of total book sales in future.

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