Library out, Amazon Kindle in

Big news from Amazon.co.uk today, which reports a milestone achievement for digital reading devices, such as the popular Kindle; according to the online retailer Kindle ebooks are now outstripping its sales of printed books, signalling a major change in consumer behaviour.

In just two years after the launch of the Kindle, news comes that customers are ditching books for the lighter, electronic alternative; more people are buying ebooks than all hardcovers and paperbacks combined.

“As soon as we started selling Kindles it became our bestselling product on Amazon.co.uk so there was a very quick adoption … [And they] are buying four times more books prior to owning a Kindle,” an Amazon spokeswoman said. “Generally there seems to be … a love of a reading and a renaissance as a result of Kindle being launched.”

Since the start of 2012, for every 100 hardback and paperback book sold on Amazon.co.uk, 114 ebooks were downloaded. The company said its figures also showed that British Kindle users were buying four times as many books as they were before purchasing a Kindle.

Ebook sales have shot up at an alarming rate with good PR from recent bestsellers, such as Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James, which has sold two million copies in the space of four months. Of the top 10 most popular Kindle authors in 2012, Nick Spalding, Katia Lief and Kerry Wilkinson were published by Amazon’s in-house agency Kindle Direct Publishing.

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