Readers committed to physical books can give a sigh of relief, as new figures reveal that ebook sales are falling while sales of paper books are growing - and the shift is being driven by younger generations.

 

纸质书的死忠可以松一口气了，新数据显示电子书销量正在下滑，而纸质书的销量则在上升，而且这一转变是由年轻一代驱动的。

 

More than 360m books were sold in 2016 - a 2% jump in a year that saw UK consumers spend an extra 6%, or £100m, on books in print and ebook formats¹, according to findings by the industry research group Nielsen in its annual books and consumer survey. The data also revealed good news for bricks-and-mortar bookshops, with a 4% rise in purchases across the UK.

 

While sales through shops increased 7% in 2016, ebook sales declined by 4%. It is the second year in a row that ebook sales have fallen, and only the second time that annual ebook sales have done so since industry bodies began monitoring sales a decade ago.

 

In 2015, the Publishers Association found that digital content sales had fallen from £563m in 2014 to £554m, while physical book sales HAD increased from £2.74bn to £2.76bn. The Bookseller also discovered a similar result, finding in its own report about the five biggest general trade publishers in the UK - Penguin² Random³ House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster - that their ebook sales collectively fell 2.4% in 2015.

 

The shift was attributed to the explosion in adult colouring books, as well as a year of high-profile fiction releases, including The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. "Readers take a pleasure in a physical book that does not translate well on to digital," the Publishers Association report read.

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