Fact of the Week #2

Mammoth online retailer Amazon is now selling more ebooks than printed books, with 105 downloads for every 100 physical purchases.

This statistic relates to sales in America, although amazon.co.uk are selling more ebooks than hardcovers, despite the increase in hardback sales. 242 ebooks are sold by Amazon in the UK for every 100 hardbacks. Waterstone's sees an even greater ratio of 4:1 in favour of ebooks.

Figures in the publishing industry have been keen to point out that these figures relate to individual unit sales rather than income or profit.

It seems that every reader has an opinion on ereaders. Traditionalists love the smell and feel of a good book that can adorn their shelves and give a bit of character to a room. The clumsy ones amongst us like knowing that if a drink leaks in our bags then it generally causes £5-10 of damage, rather than a three-figured amount. (My Lucozade-soaked War and Peace is testament to that.)

On the other hand the techies amongst us like the ability to get a book instantly and to hold numerous books on one small device complete with annotations and electronic bookmarks.

But as long as people are reading great literature, we're happy!