Book sales are on the up according to new figures from the Publishers Association.
After a rocky 2011, total book sales increased by 4% whether in print or paper format. Here's how the figures break down:
- Total book sales, digital and physical now at £3.3bn;
- Total digital sales have risen 66% to £411m, which includes a 149% increase in fiction digital sales.
- Total physical sales of fiction books are up too, rising 3% to £502m.
- Non-fiction physical sales are down 1%, partly because more academic books are being sold digitally.
The figures come from the Publishers Association Statistics Yearbook 2012 which is, yes, available in any format you want.
As a digital-friendly bookshop which trades in books constructed from both paper and data, we find these figures exciting and challenging.
Exciting because many bookfluffies out there still embrace real books alongside their eReader.
And challenging because we need keep up with our customers' habits, which means our shop has changed and will continue to change.
We've recently expanded our physical book selection and we continue to sell lots of digital product. It seems that readers are having their digital cake* and eating it.
* Cake is only available in physical format. Do not go to a cake shop and ask for a digital cake.
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