E-book sales growth showed no signs of letting up in February, increasing at an even faster rate than they did in January. According to AAP’s monthly sales estimates, e-book sales jumped 202.3% at the 16 publishers that reported results, hitting $90.3 million. The rest of the trade segments, however, all had declines in the month with adult hardcover sales plunging 43%, to $46.2 million at the 17 houses that reported figures, while mass market paperback sales tumbled 41.5%, to $29.3 million at the nine reporting houses. The $90.3 million in e-book sales was the highest dollar amount reported by any of AAP’s publishing segments in the month. The association attributed the gains to the post-holiday surge of consumers adding e-books to new e-readers.
For the first two months of 2011, e-book sales were up 169.4%, to $164.1 million, equalling the sales of trade paperbacks for the two-month period; trade paperback sales were down 22.5% for the two months at the 19 reporting publishers.
