With print books often cheaper than ebooks, whose sales stabilized at ~20% of total book sales, a look at the aftermath of Apple's ebook price fixing lawsuit
Publishing spent the 2010s fighting tooth and nail against ebooks. There were unintended consequences. Tweets: @tekaldas , @tkingdot , @paulkrugman , @gorskon , @jamesrbuk , @dandrezner , @irhottakes , @ezraklein , @voxdotcom , @thepixiepages , and @timethief See also Mediagazer Tweets: Timothy E Kaldas / @tekaldas : I just bought a heavy duty stapler and a ream of paper to print and read @SayighYezid's 360 page book on the role of Egypt's military in the economy. I'm half way through & highly recommend it. Also yes, this late millennial much prefers reading long form off paper over screens https://twitter.com/... Tracy King / @tkingdot : I'm Gen X so course I read both. Ebooks for public transport/travel, paper books for home or research. https://twitter.com/... Paul Krugman / @paulkrugman : OK, I learned something. I thought I was being cutting-edge by mainly reading ebooks. It turns out that this is a boomer thing, and younger people prefer paper! 1/ https://www.vox.com/... @gorskon : Young Boomer here. I tend to like ebooks for the same reasons (although being able to increase type size is important to me), but I still love paper books. So now I'm selective about which books I get in paper form and which as ebooks. For books I really love I buy both. https://twitter.com/... James Ball / @jamesrbuk : I can completely believe this. I only read paper books and my mum only reads Kindle. They're especially handy if your vision isn't great - lets you read any book comfortably at large type). https://twitter.com/... Daniel W. Drezner / @dandrezner : The Luddite in me, which has become more outsized over time, is so happy right now. https://twitter.com/... @irhottakes : I prefer real books for pleasure, but for textbooks and whatnot, the CTRL-F function for ebooks is quite handy. https://twitter.com/... Ezra Klein / @ezraklein : “ebook sales seem to have stabilized at around 20 percent of total book sales, with print sales making up the remaining 80 percent” https://www.vox.com/... @voxdotcom : Ebooks aren't only selling less than everyone predicted they would at the beginning of the decade. They also cost more than everyone predicted they would — and consistently, they cost more than their print equivalents. https://www.vox.com/... Namie / @thepixiepages : I can see the pros of buying ebooks—the minimalism/cutting down on filling your space with too much “stuff” & it's probably environmentally better (?)—but books aren't just fun to read; they also lend such a cozy vibe to a space. You can relax knowing you're surrounded by friends https://twitter.com/... @timethief : Publishers hoped that iBooks would do for books what iTunes did for music. It didn't quite work out that way. https://twitter.com/... See also Mediagazer
Context & Ripple Effects
Publishing spent the 2010s fighting ebooks, and the fight peaked with Apple's ebook price-fixing lawsuit, which reshaped who sets digital prices. The aftermath is visible in the numbers: after e-book sales fell 10% in early 2015 while print held firm (print's resilience was already showing by mid-decade), ebooks have settled at roughly 20% of total book sales — a plateau, not a takeover.
The odd result is that print books now often cost less than their own digital editions, an inversion that traces directly to how publishers restructured pricing after the antitrust action. Meanwhile publishers found a new lever in library licensing, where restrictions let them charge far more per digital copy than consumer prices ever reached.
First-order effects
- Consumers face inverted pricing — print frequently cheaper than ebooks — because the post-lawsuit pricing structure left publishers controlling digital list prices without retailer discounting pressure.
Second-order effects
- Publishers redirected margin pressure toward institutions: library checkouts of ebooks surged even as libraries pay an average of $40 per copy under publisher lending restrictions, enriching intermediaries like OverDrive whose licensing model has skyrocketed in value.
Third-order effects
- With ebooks stuck near a fifth of sales, the predicted print extinction never arrived; instead publishing consolidated around channel-specific pricing — consumer print, consumer digital, and institutional licensing — which invites renewed regulatory scrutiny of digital licensing terms.
The trend: The ebook 'disruption' has resolved into a publisher-controlled equilibrium across print, retail digital, and library licensing, with format shares frozen near 20% and institutional channels carrying the growth.