Jeff Bezos: “Kindle Format Has Now Overtaken the Hardcover Format”

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rocked the publishing world with a Kindle sales quote late yesterday.

He explained: “[W]hile our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books–astonishing when you consider that we’ve been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months.”

The online bookseller put out a release today loaded with intriguing facts. Nevertheless, the company still has not released straightforward figures about total Kindle sales or total eBooks sold. Among the other details, the company revealed they have sold three times as many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 compared to the first half of 2009.

According to the release (embedded below), five authors have already sold more than 500,000 Kindle books. eBookNewser has the complete list of these new digital all-stars.

Amazon also shared this statistic for paid books: “Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle books. Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.”

AmazonRelease6-19-2010

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