It’s IDPF time again, that happy moment when the International Digital Publishing Forum and Association of American Publisher release their latest sales stats for the e-book industry. The news, as it has been all year (knock wood), remains glorious: trade e-book sales went from $5 million in August ’08 to $14.4 mil a year later, a few dollars shy of tripling the earlier figure. Equally impressive are the totals for the first two months of Q3-09: they are more than double the same period of ’08, namely $30.6 million as compared to $13.9 million.

The true sales numbers may be even higher than the above chart indicates. Michael Smith, Executive Director of IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum) reminds us that:

* This data represents United States revenues only
* This data represents only trade eBook sales via wholesale channels. Retail numbers may be as much as double the above figures due to industry wholesale discounts.
* This data represents only data submitted from approx. 12 to 15 trade publishers
* This data does not include library, educational or professional electronic sales
* The numbers reflect the wholesale revenues of publishers
* The definition used for reporting electronic book sales is “All books delivered electronically over the Internet OR to hand-held reading devices”

RC