Time flies

As recently as 2007, before Kindle, there were no ebook sales and upwards of 85% of print was sold in stores. Whew, how time flies when you are having fun. What the latest Bowker information has to say, lumping ebooks into “online commerce”, is that 44% of sales are online, 32% through physical retail, and the remainder through book clubs and warehouse clubs (physical retail) and “all other channels”. But they also report that 30% of sales are ebooks, which would mean that they’re only calling 14% of the remaining 70% online. Does that put in perspective how fast the ebook evolution has happened? In the words of The Shatzkin Files, a blog I like to read: "Only a quarter to a half of the sales now — far less for fiction and far more for illustrated books — require a publisher to 'put books on shelves'. And that number is going down."