Fifteen years ago Amazon.com began selling books through their online store. A bit more than 11 years later, Amazon began selling electronic books. This month they reported that they have seen a first as electronic books outsold published books for the first time.
Speaking of the preference buyers have shown for Kindle books over published books, Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos stated; "We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly."
Amazon.co.uk has shown to be doing good following the introduction of the UK Kindle store as well, with Kindle books outselling hardcover books after only a year. Amazon said in their press release that since April 1st there has been a 2 to 1 difference in favor of the Kindle e-books over hardcover books.
I know that on my Kindle, which I had bought for my father because of the capability to have books read to you by the device, I have downloaded a number of out-of-copyright books, of which Amazon has millions to choose from. And the Kindle market is a fast growing one, with over 175,000 books being added to the Kindle Store this year bringing their book collection to over 950,000 books and growing.
With all those choices, and the ease of downloading a good read anywhere (or nearly anywhere if you have to log in via a wi-fi hotspot), it is no wonder to me that they have managed to outsell print books. I would think that, like me, people that are going to purchase a print book would do so out of their local bookstore rather than buying online and waiting a week or more for it to arrive. There is the instant gratification of wanting to read something and being able to read it immediately tied in to the less expensive cost (790,000 Kindle books are $9.99 or less) of the Kindle Store books.
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