At the start of the year, however, it looks like that’s changing. In 2020, ebook sales rose by 11%. But in 2021, sales declined by 3.7%. Ebook sales also plummeted from January to March this year, according to the Association of American Publishers. In January, it was a 10.1% fall from last year. In February, sales dropped by 6.9% as that trend continued. In March, it went down again as sales dipped by a whopping 12.2%. Meanwhile, in the UK, ebook sales are down in 2021, the “lowest point since 2012,” according to The Bookseller. The UK magazine reported that 80 million ebooks were downloaded in 2021, which is a disappointment next to its 95 million in 2020. As this phenomenon continues to play out, it raises a question the general state of ebooks in 2022: are they on the decline again after a dramatic comeback? Before we unpack what’s going on, let’s take a shallow dive into a brief history of ebook pricing. And then the COVID-19 pandemic froze everything, preventing people from easily buying physical books. This made many readers turned to ebooks once again. But as the world is opened up again in 2022, people are going out and dropping by the bookstores again. And so starts the dipping sales of ebooks. Since then, ebooks have enjoyed a decent popularity. Sales are down, and sometimes up. But they have never killed print. People moved on from the digital and went back to physical eventually, for the most part. Kozlowski said that when pandemic restrictions lifted and bookstores started reopening, ebook sales started to decline, and sales of hardcover and paperback started to increase. “I think more people who were buying ebooks are now buying a mixture of ebooks and print books, and not buying so many ebooks,” he told me. Mark Williams, the editor of the publication The New Publishing Standard that covers publishing news, said that AAP’s 2021 report fails to account for tens of millions of dollars in ebook revenue. “We simply don’t know the true scale of the impact ebooks have on the U.S. and global book markets, either in revenue terms or in consumer engagement, but we can say with absolute certainty that the AAP numbers only paint a partial picture,” he wrote in May 2021. So are ebooks losing their shine again? Are they in decline thanks to the “disappointing” sales, and maybe, because of the extreme dislike by many? Data suggests that the ebook market may actually be a lot bigger. The adoption of e-textbooks in classrooms is one thing, and the uncounted Kindle sales are another. Although things might have plateaued, and enhanced formats like interactive ebooks didn’t catch on, ebooks still haven’t run their course. They may not be as relevant as print these days compared in the last decade, but they still enjoy steady sales flow. Unless there’s a full accounting of ebook sales from various sectors, it’s still early to tell that ebooks are on the decline again. And as long as there are readers who want immediate gratification (and who doesn’t?), there will always be a space for ebooks.
