Book publishing is a resilient business according to CEO
The industry says its most valuable customers buy several books a month on multiple formats.
The e-book business is thriving, despite the competition between digital, print and audible books, according to the boss of an e-reader company.
The publishing sector has been experiencing recovery in recent years, after a period of decline . Between 2011 and 2014, publishing revenue fell from US$165 billion to US$145 billion, according to statistics from Euromonitor. The global book market shrunk 7.4 per cent between 2011 and 2012.
But the industry has proven to be resilient, according to Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Kobo, which sells e-reader apps and devices, as well as e-books.
"I think what's amazing about this industry is every year it finds a new driver for growth and so we see that in the move back and forth between print and digital," says Tamblyn.
According to Tamblyn, the industry's most valuable customers, those who buy several books a month, are reading both print books and digital e-books, rather than one or the other.
"Those people who are buying the most have allowed those two things to co-exist," he said. "We are seeing the two formats kind of living together, rather than one supplanting the other."