Ebook Sales Now Beating Out Hardcovers In U.S.

American publishers are now earning more customers from Ebook sales than they are from hardcover book sales. The Association of American Publishers (AAP) compiled the official Ebook vs. hardcover data from 1,189 publishers, although the study did not include an examination of children’s books.

Ebooks brought in $282.3 million in Q1 2012, up 28.4% from one year prior. The study also found that Young adult and children’s Ebooks jumped by 233% year-over-year to $64.3 million. Adult hardcover books did manage to witness growth but only by 2.7% up to $229.6 million in Q1 2012.

The move towards Ebooks shouldn’t come as a surprise, after all the Amazon Kindle line of devices have witnessed tremendous sales growth over the last several years while Apple’s iPad has managed to draw in a new crowd of tech savvy readers who want devices that offer them more options.

The study also found that paperback sales are still ahead of Ebook sales with $299.8 million in Q1 2012 revenue however paperback sales are on the decline with sales slipping from 2012’s high of $335 million.

In what might be the most surprising statistic to date audiobooks grew at an even more pronounces rate of $32.7 million, enough to capture $25 million in Q1.

With Ebook technology still developing and users assimilating to the technology it won’t be long before paperbacks are overtaken by Ebooks.

Here’s a closer look of book sales in graph form:

Are you surprised by the sudden increase in Ebook sales that has led to the decline of hardcover and paperback books sales over the last 12 months?