AAP February 2011 data is in and...

The full press release can be found here. eBooks hit a major milestone:

"For February 2011, e-Books ranked as the #1 format among all categories of Trade publishing (Adult Hardcover, Adult Paperback, Adult Mass Market, Children’s/Young Adult Hardcover, Children’s/Young Adult Paperback)"

• ebooks 2010 to 2011 rose 169.4% to $164.1M
• combined print books 2010 to 2011 declined 24.8% to $441.7M
  
• ebooks sales = 29.5% of total ebook/print sales

What is even more important is these numbers come from:

• data provided by 84 U.S. publishing houses representing major commercial, education, professional, scholarly and independents
• Data on e-Books comes from 16 houses.

Many have been thinking that ebooks will account for more than 50% of the market by 2015 - I think that date will be adjusted dramatically in the coming months. Remember just 2 months ago when the 2010 numbers were released. Here is a chart from then:

In just two months (data for December vs February) we went from 8% to nearly 30%!!