The Internet grabs a huge share in the used-book business

Edward Wyatt The New York Times : "In barely a decade, online booksellers have grown to account for two-thirds of the market for general-interest used books in the United States, a trend that calls into question the future of brick-and-mortar stores devoted to used books, according to a study financed by the publishing industry.

The study, released on Wednesday by the Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research organization whose members include nearly all commercial publishers as well as libraries and nonprofit book-related organizations, found that online sales of general-interest used books are growing at a rate of more than 30 percent a year, while sales of used books at stores are almost flat.

Used books account for a relatively small portion of U.S. consumers' overall spending on books, with roughly $600 million, or 3 percent, of the $21 billion that Americans spent last year on general-interest titles going for secondhand books, the study found. The market for used textbooks is far larger, at $1.6 billion, or more than 30 percent of the $5.3 billion spent by consumers on educational and professional books.

Over all, used-book purchases accounted for $2.2 billion, or 8 percent, of the $26.3 billion that American consumers spent in 2004 on books of all types. That total was up 11 percent from the previous year, the study found. The Book Industry Study Group report is based on transaction data from large online sites where books are bought and sold, including Amazon, eBay, and others; data from Monument Information Resource, which tracks college bookstores; a survey of independent booksellers around the country; and online questionnaires aimed at used-book consumers. It does not include used-book sales by large national chain stores, like Barnes & Noble; used books are generally a small portion of those stores' businesses, however.

The study's findings are similar, if different in scale, to other recent studies. Ipsos BookTrends, a commercial research company, has reported that used books account for about 8 percent of overall sales of general-interest books to consumers.

Publishing companies and authors have long expressed concern over used-book sales, saying they cannibalize potential sales of new books and, because they generate no royalties for authors or revenue for publishers, they harm the ability of authors and publishers to make a living. A research paper released a year ago, however, found that online used-book markets like Amazon cannibalized potential sales of new books only about 15 percent of the time. The researchers, Anindya Ghose of New York University and Michael Smith and Rahul Telang of Carnegie Mellon University, also hypothesized that because the lower prices of used books leave consumers with more money, the gains from additional readership might result in more buying of new books and in the increased exposure of authors to new audiences."