New Stats: E-Book Growth Slows As Children’s Hardcover Jumps

From a paidContent.org Article by Laura Hazard Owen:

The newest statistics from the Association of American Publishers show that e-book growth slowed somewhat in November, though it’s still high—up 65.9 percent over November 2010. Slower growth could be attributed to a pre-holiday sales lull, as consumers waited for new devices like the Kindle Fire to come on the market.
Here’s how November 2011 stacked up compared to November 2010. Trade sales were down 3.5 percent compared to November 2010, while e-book sales were up 65.9 percent—still very high growth but down from the triple-digit percentage growth in previous months.
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he big jump in children’s/young adult hardcover sales in November, up 27 percent over last year. Why is that? A possible reason: Bowker’s latest data shows us that bricks-and-mortar bookstores are still the #1 source of discovery for children’s books, and over 85 percent of kids’ books are bought on impulse. “Shop Local Saturday” held in November in response to Amazon’s price check app, sent tons of customers into independent bookstores—and indie bookstore sales were up 15 percent for the holiday period, the American Booksellers Association says. So maybe many of the books purchased then were children’s books.

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