Ebook Sales Booming in Great Britain

Posted on January 6, 2011

The Telegraph reports that ebooks are finally becoming quite popular in Great Britain. Surprisingly, the most popular books are the classics, such as all of Charles Dickens' works, the Bronte sisters and even The Illiad. Most of the classic books are out of copyright and are offered for free on Amazon.com for the Kindle e-reader. The Telegraph reports:

Owners of ebook gadgets like Amazon's Kindle and the Apple iPad can snap up the works of many dead literary greats without paying a penny because they are out of copyright. Coupled with the proliferation of these devices, titles such as Pride and Prejudice and Treasure Island have shot to the top of the ebook charts.

The most popular e-books over the Christmas period were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol and Bram Stoker's Dracula. Even Homer's The Iliad made it into Amazon's top 20 of free Kindle e-books last week.

Ebook sales are estimated to be around 2% of the British book market. That figure is expected to rise sharply as more e-readers are sold.

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