9 : The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections BN.com stayed ahead of Apple’s iBookstore and iTunes in May, with about 27 percent of ebook buyers going to BN.com, while ebook buyers using the iBook- store or iTunes stayed below 10 percent (and actually fell slightly from January) (BISG, May 2011 PW, August 19, 2011). Publishing and Bookselling Reinvented The market clout of retailers such as Amazon will a ect traditional publishing. Through the Kindle devices, the Amazon.com website, and other assets, Amazon collects massive data on user patterns and buying preferences, allowing further customization of the user experience. Amazon has also enhanced its portfolio by acting as a publisher through its Amazon Encore program. Early examples such as crime writer J. A. Konrath and romance writer Amanda Hocking illustrate how self-publishing via Amazon Encore and the Kindle is radically changing traditional sales and marketing strategies in publishing. Midlist writer Konrath published his novel Shaken in October 2010, rst as an ebook, which sold 130,000 copies by February 2011, when the novel came out in print format. Konrath’s use of Amazon Encore turned the Amazon community, with its user-generated reviews, into an e ective marketing channel. Likewise, Hocking self-published her romances as ebooks, selling them via the Kindle, allegedly at 100,000 downloads per month. Both authors charge between $0.99 and $2.99, with a return of about 70 percent of the list price. The large number of “copies” sold—presumably not possible in print format—can turn a midlist author into a high earner (PW, May 24, 2010). United Kingdom In the rst half year of 2012, digital sales accounted for 12.9 percent of the total value of sales, up from 7.2 percent in the equivalent period of 2011. Sales of digital ction increased by 188 percent in value in that same period, and overall digital sales accounted for £84 million romance, mystery, and science ction—hit hardest (source: various reports summarized by PW, July 8, 2011). Consumers’ attitudes as reported by BISG re ected the deep and rapid change in the industry, particularly the revenue losses of hardcover and paperback sales. About 67 percent of ebook buyers said that they increased spending on ebooks in May 2011, up from 48 percent in September 2010. Just over 50 percent of ebook buyers said that they cut back on their purchases of printed books in May 2011, and 45 percent said they reduced spending on hardcover books. Dedicated ereaders as well as multifunctional devices continued to gain in popularity in the spring of 2011 as the favored way to read ebooks, while computers contin- ued to lose ground (BISG, “Consumer Attitudes Toward E-Book Reading,” quoted in PW, August 19, 2011). 2010–2011 Distribution The leading actor in the ebook market, Amazon.com, also dominated the US retail market for printed books. More than 70 percent of ebook buyers used the store to buy ebook titles, an increase of 60 percent over the previous year. For the second quarter of 2011, Amazon reported revenue growth of 51 percent to $9.91 billion, of which $5.41 billion was in the US ($4.51 billion in Europe). Amazon’s Kindle store o ered 950,000 ebook titles, of which 800,000 cost $9.99 or less 110 of the 111 titles on the bestseller list of the New York Times were available as ebooks for the Kindle. The second heavyweight player in retail, and the strongest competitor to Amazon, is Barnes & Noble (barnesandnoble.com or BN.com), with more than 2 million ebooks available. Although BN.com’s total rev- enue increased by only 2 percent to $1.42 billion ( rst quarter ending July 2011), its digital content and ereader device (Nook) segment grew 140 percent and repre- sented 19.5 percent of total sales. With an investment from Liberty Media of $204 million, Barnes & Noble announced plans to become the leading bookseller in the US.