For those who still think that eBooks aren’t going to last, you might want to talk to Barnes & Noble CEO William Lynch, who told investors on a conference call yesterday that his company’s digital books now outsell all formats of its print books—combined—by a factor of three to one.
That’s not the only good news the bookstore chain has for the digital publishing world; Lynch also said that PubIt!, the company’s self-publishing digital platform, had become “the fastest growing part of our digital catalog in unites and volume sales,” with one self-published book becoming the #1 seller in the Nook Bookstore recently.
Overall, Nook-related sales have grown to $250 million a year, with overall sales at BN.com at $858 million, up 65% over last year.
It’s some rare good news for Barnes & Noble, which reported a fourth quarter loss of $59 million thanks to the continuing slump of in-store sales, despite the closure of more than 200 Borders bookstores. Clearly, the future is digital—well, that and letting people publish their own books online to take advantage of the vanity press market that’s always been out there.
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