Sales of consumer ebooks plunged last year, as readers shun electronic reading devices in favour of good, old-fashioned paperbacks.
Consumer ebooks, for devices such as the Amazon Kindle and Kobo, fell 17 percent in 2016, hitting their lowest level since ebooks entered the mainstream in 2011.
This compares to 2014, when sales of consumer ebooks were at an all-time high of £275 million, equalling half of the ebook market. Over the course of 2016 it appears consumers reignited their love for old-fashioned books, with print sales of consumer book titles rising almost 9 percent to £1.55 billion.
According to figures from the UK Publishers Association, released on Thursday, overall digital sales were up 6 percent to £1.7 billion; despite a continuation of the drop in eBook sales which were down 3 percent. Physical sales of all categories rose 8 percent to £3 billion.
Chief Executive of the Publishers Association, Stephen Lotinga, said:
“UK Publishing is a world leader and these figures confirm that the industry is flourishing due to the hard work and ingenuity of its superb publishing houses and workforce.
“All of us have at some point in our lives enjoyed the work of a great author, used a high quality textbook, or benefitted from the sharing of academic literature and that is only possible due to the continued success of the publishing industry.”
International readers taste for British books also grew during 2016, with figures for learned journals showing that 87 percent of revenues came from exports. Exports of children’s books increased by 34 percent to £116 million, publishers of primary and secondary learning materials saw export sales rise by 11 percent to £144 million, and non-Fiction exports were up by 10 percent to £264 million.