The important message here is a simple one: consumer interest in ebooks is not declining, no matter what nonsense we are told from the stats counters that only count part of the market.
OverDrive starts the year with the assertion it saw 555 million downloads in 2022, up 10% on 2021, but the breakdown doesn’t quite add up. In fact, the total would appear to be higher!
Here’s what OverDrive says:
During the year, readers borrowed 555 million ebooks, audiobooks, digital magazines, comics and other digital content, a 10 percent increase over 2021.
But when it comes to the breakdown, OverDrive tells us:
Ebooks borrowed: 331 million (+4%)
Audiobooks borrowed: 191 million (+17%)
Magazines borrowed: 32 million (+38%)
Comics and graphic novels: 33 million (+18%)
Now why does the number 587 million spring to mind?
The important message here is a simple one: consumer interest in ebooks is not declining, no matter what nonsense we are told from the stats counters that only count part of the market.
Later this month we’ll learn the December numbers for the Kindle Unlimited pot payout, which is basically the amount of cash paid out in “royalties” to indie-authors and small presses for ebooks downloaded through Amazon’s ebook subscription service.
The 2022 total had, at the November count, already topped a half billion dollars. And remember this is royalties, not sales revenue, and dos not include a la carte ebook sales, and is quite separate from what is paid out to APub authors in Kindle Unlimited.
When the figures for 2022 finally appear in a few months’ time we need to keep in mind these Kindle Unlimited and Overdrive numbers to counter negative ebook numbers we’ve come to expect from mainstream publishing.
Meantime, check out the OverDrive full press release.
