eBook Buying Is About To Spiral Upward

Since Amazon.com introduced the Kindle eReader in 2007, all of the industry's attention has focused on the rapid adoption and proliferation of eReaders. However, the success of the devices has been fueled by the convenient availability of the most popular books in digital form, often priced significantly below their physical counterparts. This fact has drawn consumers in more rapidly than we have seen in any other media. Here, we profile the 7% of US online adults who read eBooks today — many of them without eReaders — and show that this small, energetic group will grow so rapidly that it will easily spend nearly $3 billion on eBooks in 2015. We recommend that product strategists responsible for the eBooks we read and the devices we read them on plan now to grow their businesses in step with their eager consumers.