The New York Times, in the article Music Industry Sales Rise, and Digital Revenue Gets the Credit, noted that revenues rose for the first time since 1999 for the music industry. The industry was hit hard by the availability of downloads, which became popular earlier than e-books. 

The lesson book publishers can learn is that e-books are not destroying their own market. Instead, they’re just providing readers with a new format.

Historically, the same thing happened when movies threatened the radio shows people relied on until then for entertainment.

Now book publishers are changing the pace at which they respond to new technologies. They have to become more nimble than ever before in order to ensure that their market share is distributed across new and old formats. Some publishers, who at first thought e-books were a fluke or were simply not worth investing in, are pulling as much as 27% of their annual profits from the sale of e-books.

Print is not dead. It’s simply now electronic ink!