eBooks are becoming big business

Some ten years ago, talking to publishers about eBooks used to induce groans of despair. "Please can we move on from the subject?" was the response I recall when asking my General Manager at the time. I was working in the publishing arm of Microsoft and they had just brought out their 'Reader' software for eBooks. It was ahead of its time and nobody knew what to do with it.

Now though, the world has moved on dramatically. The book research company, BML, published findings at its annual 'Books & Consumers Conference' that publishers are predicting that, by 2012, ten percent of their revenues will come from eBooks.

'So, what?', you may ask. Only a year or so ago, you would hear publishers talking about their revenues from eBooks making up about one or two percent of their revenues. That's a huge change.

Furthermore, eBooks aren't destroying thir sales of printed books. Far from it. Publishers are saying that eBooks are helping to increase the market overall which confounds the 'traditionalists' who believe that eBooks will end their favoured, printed format.

That has to be good for everyone who reads and is a natural evolution in how we read.