Electronic books in the USA – their numbers and development and a comparison to Germany

While there are frequently quoted articles about the revenue in e‐books over the last two years there is no regular statistical information about the amount of e‐books being published. This article attempts to fill this gap.

The paper states the total number of commercially available English‐speaking e‐books in the US‐market and reviews the growth of the publishing‐activities over the last 20 years. Finally, the paper sets the growth of the publishing activities in the e‐book‐market in relation to the developments in the hardcover‐market. The data about the English‐speaking publications was obtained from the book trade directory Global Books In Print Online. The data about the German‐speaking publications was gathered from the author's own survey.

There are at least 115,000 commercial English‐speaking e‐book‐editions offered in the US‐market. There is an increase of an average of 20 per cent a year in the production of e‐books over the last 20 years. In relation to the total amount of hardcover‐editions the total number of e‐book‐titles run up to 9 per cent. In comparison to Germany the USA is at the forefront of the e‐book‐market. About 5,000 German‐speaking e‐book‐titles were published, which runs up to 1 per cent of the total amount of hardcover editions.

The low number of e‐books published is one of the central problems of the e‐book‐market. As there is no other data available yet this article provides the reader with the information needed to assess the situation.