Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Brave New World: 2020 Vision in Digital Book World (Part 2)

Presentation to the Seoul International Book Fair, Seoul, South Korea, May 2010

Part 2 The Digital Market and short term predictions


The digital market is growing at a pace which is hard to predict. The US market is clearly leading the way, as are sectors such as academic publishing.

The IDPF report claims that sales over the last quarter in 2007 were $7 million, in 2008 rose to $16 million and shot up to $55 million this last year. This may still represent single digit market but is growing at a significant pace.

The UK Publishers Association claim 2008 sales have doubled to £150m and now represent 4-5% of the combined physical and digital UK sales. The majority, some £130m, came from the academic and professional sector.

We are confident that US and UK digital sales will rise to 15% of the market over the next 3 years. The issue is whether the overall market will remain flat and digital sales will cannibalise physical market.

We expect to see a continued rise in academic, educational and professional sectors where many of the sales will be substitution.

We would predict that by 2015 the digital market share could be some 20% to 25%.

We also predict that by 2015 some sectors will be ‘digital’.

At the end of 2009 we published ten short term predictions on the Brave New World blog covering these areas of publishing. Four months on we stand by these and urge you to follow their progress.

1. Google Will Change All
2. Libraryworld
3. Promoting, Marketing and Book Information
4. Sales Information
5. Digital Platforms, Channels and Consumers
6. Authors In Control
7. Booksellers
8. Publishers
9. Breaking the Spine
10. Rights

To read to revised Brave New World report online

No comments: