Okay, maybe this post title is a little misleading. Ebook sales slowed down in November 2011, but overall were still on their way up. This is according to the Association of American Publishers.

Here’s an article posted by EContent:

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) released statistics that show ebook growth slowed somewhat in November, although it is still high overall. Ebooks are still up 65.9% over Nov. 2010. In the same November-to-November window, trade sales were down 3.5%. Slower growth could be due to a pre-holiday sales lull, as consumers waited for new e-reader devices to come to market.

It’s interesting to note that the slight decrease in ebook sales might have been due to customers waiting for new eReaders to hit the market. With the pace of eReaders and tablet computers hitting the market though, one shouldn’t have to wait very long. Hopefully when we see the ebook sales numbers for the beginning of 2012, they’ll have skyrocketed again.

There’s no shortage of authors who hate ebooks. Today, it’s Jonathan Franzen. It’s ironic that as much as he hates ebooks, all of his novels are available in digital format on Amazon, for $9.99 each.

I’m not shy about saying that I love Franzen’s work. The Corrections is a great novel and I encourage everyone to read it.

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When I’m right, I’m right. In a previous post Why You Shouldn’t Get Too Excited About Apple’s iBooks 2 Textbooks, I argued that e-textbooks won’t catch on anytime soon because not everyone has an iPad, and the high price will be prohibitive for many students to buy one.

This is especially true for poorer school districts. Even if Apple has a iPad lending program, or discounts for school, you’re still trusting high school students with a very expensive device.

In college, you can’t teach a class with some students using an e-textbook and other students using a print textbook. It just won’t work. You can, however, give every student an iPad by adding the cost to an already high tuition bill. Overall though, I don’t think e-textbooks will catch on soon. There are too many barriers to overcome first.

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NOTE: Check out my follow-up to this post: E-Textbooks In iBooks 2 Won’t Catch On Anytime Soon

Now that Apple has released iBooks 2, which is enhanced for e-textbooks, everyone is excited about how this new feature will revolutionize learning. My advice: Don’t get too excited, at least, not yet.

Yes, the new iBooks 2 is very impressive. I’ll give it that. But there’s a huge difference between being “impressive” and being “practical” in the real world.

How dare I question Apple’s innovation! Just hear me out. I’m predicting e-textbooks aren’t going to catch on anytime soon. Here’s why.

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Apple introduced iBooks 2 for iPad today that adds a new e-textbAfter ook feature that will allow students to interact with the material, not just read it.

These electronic textbooks are enhanced for graphics, videos, interactive features, students notes, highlights and anything else you can think of to make a boring subject like chemistry tolerable.

I found a cool video on engadget that demonstrates all the features mentioned above. Take a look for yourself:

One thing that still annoys me about ebooks is the lack of quality control. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been reading an ebook, only to find that there is a page missing, a duplicate page, bad formatting, duplicate paragraphs, or other obvious errors.

This begs the question: Where is ebook quality control?

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Sometimes it’s easy to forget that there are other eReaders on the market than just the Kindle, Nook and even the iPad (even though it’s way more than just an eReader). There are other options out there for consumers looking for something different.

Earlier today I was thinking about Russia. Don’t ask why. I decided to see what Russians are using to read ebooks. With no large chain bookstores in Russia, ebooks are perfect for a country with such a rich literary history.

A quick Google search gave me my answer.

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Publishers Weekly is reporting ebook sales figures for the month of October, and as usual, it looks really good.

I’ll let the PW article speak for itself:

E-book sales rose 81.2% in October, to $72.8 million, at the 20 publishers who supply e-book figures to the Association of American Publishers monthly sales report. The 81% increase was the first time this year that e-book sales did not double over the same month in 2010. For the first 10 months of the year, e-book sales were up 131.1%, to $807.7 million.

With eReader prices falling and more consumers jumping onto the ebook bandwagon, it seems we’ll see this trend continue into the foreseeable future.

I’m guessing that there will be many shiny eReaders wrapped up and placed under the Christmas tree this year. Given that the price of eReaders has dropped to below $100, they are becoming more affordable to more people.

When you go to buy ebooks though, the books might not be as cheap as they used to be. Over the last year or so the price of ebooks has been slowly creeping upwards.

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The ebook industry is coming under heavy scrutiny from US and European officials investigating antitrust allegations. The justice department, states attorney general and EU officials are seeing whether or not several publishers fixed prices when they inked a deal with Apple before the launch of the iBookstore.

Central to the investigation is the “agency model.” This allows publishers to set ebook prices while giving Apple or Amazon (for example) a percentage of the sale. The agency model prevents ebook retailers from setting prices too low, thus devaluing the ebook (or so publishers say).

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