Two days ago we met the joy of the printed book industry that they are finding figures that they have not obtained in years, thanks to other ways of diversifying their services to provide the client with a different deal; These independent bookstores have known how to adapt to the times that play digital and have even grown in offers and quality.
But e-book sales are falling according to Simon & Schuster and Hachette in which both lose business in digital book publications. An indication that the market is reeling to reposition itself and does not neglect the traditional one, the print, and reduce the percentage of profits for which it has taken a large part of the cake in recent years.
Simon & Schuster has published its financial results for the second quarter of 2016. The publisher has admitted that the sales of e-books have been reduced by 6 percent. E-book and audiobook sales now account for 23% of total revenue. Print and digital sales generated $ 187 million from April to June; in the same period of time in 2015 they obtained 199 million dollars.
On the other hand, we have Hachetter who has also announced his financial results, but this time for the first six months of this year. E-book sales took the 9,2 percent of the total of income, which is less than that 10,7% that was obtained during the same period last year. Sales for those six months of 2016 fell 6,6% for Hachetter Book Group. The funny thing in this case is that the benefits increased by 180%. Michael Pietsch, CEO of HBG, refers to this by knowing how to manage costs well.
Two indicators of the decrease in ebook sales from these two groups and they confirm what was obtained two days ago with another piece of news.