Well, looking at the e-book sales of John Grisham’s new book The Confession, the headline seems to be true. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that 70,000 of the 230,000 copies sold during the book’s first week of release came from e-book sales. That means that the book achieved a 30% digital share. This is pretty amazing seeing as how e-books are still in their infancy stage. Digital music never reached such shares in their earliest stages, and even today most mainstream acts (with a few exceptions) never pass the 30% mark in digital sales.
While it’s astonishing to see buyers embracing e-books faster than digital music, both WSJ and Billboard.biz point out a problem that could arise: pricing. Not only do e-books’ popularity result in the decrease of sales and reproduction of hard covers, but fronts like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are forced to lower the prices of e-books to $9.99-$15.92. Hmm, beginning to sound familiar?
[via Online.WSJ.com and Billboard.biz]
