Digital fiction book sales soar

A "huge increase" in the value of digital book sales in the UK has been announced by trade organization, the Publishers Association Tuesday. The value of digital fiction sales in the first half of 2012 was up 188 percent on the same period in 2011. Physical book sales saw a drop in value, dipping 0.4 percent year on year, the BBC quoted the Association as saying. Industry experts said that while the figures were healthy, other areas of the industry, such as bookshops, continued to struggle financially. "Certainly the strong e-book growth has taken the tarnish off the otherwise tricky market," said Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller group. "It is good news that the market is transitioning and making money from that, but it is moving to a trickier situation where there are fewer booksellers." The figures show impressive increases across the board in a year where e-book popularity - in particular the likes of Fifty Shades of Grey novel- hit the headlines for racking up massive sales. Sales of digital children's books were up 171 percent, while non-fiction titles increased by 128 percent. The total value of sales of all books - digital and non-digital - were up by 6.1 percent for the January-June period. This generated revenue of 1.1billion pounds for the first half of the year, the Publishers Association (PA) said. The industry is unsure, the Association said, over where exactly consumer interest will head next. "What we don't know yet is what will happen when more book readers get tablet devices," it said.