Some factual information I’ve picked up recently from publishers’ newsletters, etc.
1. British Bookshops have closed.
2. Borders US are in a lot of trouble.
3. Borders UK closed in 2009.
4. Waterstones are closing 20 branches.
5. Up to 800 libraries (one-fifth of the total) in the UK are under threat.
BUT
6. There has been an ‘unprecedented surge’ in sales of electronic readers over the Christmas period – an estimated 3-5 million in the US.
7. Barnes and Noble had sold one million e-books by Christmas Day.
8. USA Today’s list of Best-Selling Books shows that e-book versions of the top six books outsold the print versions over Christmas and New Year.
9. Amazon announced that it sold more e-books for its Kindle device than it sold paperbacks in the last three months of 2010.
10. The judges for the UK Man Booker award will be able to read this year’s entries in both paper and electronic forms.