Carrying on from yesterday’s discussion, on the trends of buying ebooks and the effect it is having on the market, we have some sales figures today from The Grauniad.

Sales of ebooks are increasing and compensating for the decline in physical books. I would assume that this trend is here to stay. Book sales in general – when we combine the sales of physical and digital formats – are down just 2%. There are many aspects that could affect this so any hint that people are starting to read less (as more reactionary newspapers than The Graundian might suggest) could be affected by economic factors. On a side note, I would be interested to know what the equivalent sales figures are for second-hand book sales. If these have increased, it could indicate that the decline in sales of new books is for economic purposes.

Some food for thought anyway.

In amongst all the doom-mongering of Amazon monopoly and of epublishing in general, there is an alternative view in which the publishing houses are dinosaurs who can – yet refuse – to avoid their own extinction to preserve a monopoly they feel entitled to. Strong stuff, but this is the view of Barry Eisler in this article for The Guardian.

There are some incendiary points in there as well as a completely irrelevant aside about the US Department of Justice’s conduct on political prisoners but this section caught my eye:

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