Amazon today announced that ebooks are now outselling hardcover books. Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books sold, 143 Kindle books were sold. And the pace is not slowing down. Over the past month, the ratio has climbed further to 180 Kindle books for every 100 hardcover books. Free ebooks are excluded from these numbers.
Without disclosing actual numbers, Amazon also indicated it sold more than three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009. Five authors (Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie Meyer, James Patterson, and Nora Roberts) have now each sold more than 500,000 Kindle books.
On the Kindle device side, sales have tripled since Amazon lowered the price to US$189. Again, Amazon did not disclose actual numbers.