Yesterday, Amazon sent out a press release announcing that eBook sales have now outpaced hardcover sales and touting the increased sales of lower priced Kindle units. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, stated, “Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books – astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.” In the past three months Amazon has sold 143 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it has sold in the U.S. In the past month, Amazon has increased that ratio by selling 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books it’s sold. The number of eBooks sales in the first half of 2010 is more than triple the number sold in the first half of 2009. Amazon also applauds a group of five authors that have sold more than 500,000 Kindle books. Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts have all passed the half million mark.
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