Highlights Only: BISG Study Reveals E-Book Buyers Are Accelerating Their Move Away From Print

From the Book Industry Study Group:

The surge in sales of e-reading devices like Amazon’s Kindle during the 2010 holiday season launched a turning point in e-book history according to the Book Industry Study Group (BISG). The second installment in VOLUME TWO of BISG’s closely watched Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading survey shows the percentage of print book consumers who say they download e-books jumped from 5% in October 2010 to nearly 13% in January 2011. In addition, fully two-thirds of survey respondents said they have moved exclusively, or mostly, to e-books over print. Finally, despite declining sales of pricier hardbacks, overall spending on books shows an uptick over the past six months, with 44% of respondents reporting higher unit purchases and 34% reporting higher overall spending on a combination of print books and e-books.

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Results from the most recent survey in VOLUME TWO show:

• Fiction continues to dominate downloads, with literary fiction, science fiction, and romance each comprising over 20% of all format purchases.
• The most influential factors leading to an e-book purchase are free samples and low prices.
• “Power Buyers” (respondents who indicated that they acquired e-books at least weekly) have moved away from computers to dedicated e-readers and tablets much faster than the overall pool of respondents.

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