Kindle's E-Book Sales Officially Surpass Print Books

The $1 billion e-book industry is growing at its fastest rate in 10 years -- good news for small-business book publishers, authors and readers.

Sales of electronic books forAmazon's Kindle have now officially surpassed the sale of print books -- hardcover and paperback combined -- the e-commerce site announced Thursday. To date in 2011, Amazon has sold more than three times as many Kindle books as it did during this same period last year, the company reported in a statement. Overall, Amazon is seeing the fastest year-over-year growth rate for book sales in all formats -- print and digital -- than it has in the past 10 years.

Amazon's first indication that e-book sales were taking off was in July 2010, when Kindle book sales surpassed hardcover book sales on the site, just shy of the 3-year mark of the Kindle's release.

According to a report released in late 2010 by Forrester Research, the e-book market is now a $1 billion industry, with sales expected to reach $2.81 billion by 2015. Small-business owners have had an opportunity to capture a slice of that market through Kindle's Direct Publishing program, which allows anyone to self-publish a book through the Amazon Kindle Store without requiring the backing of a publishing house. CLICK HERE to read the full story. 

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