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The US book business is starting to reap the benefit of strong sales of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy, with trade paperbacks up 10% in April, and adult e-books up by more than a third, according to the latest numbers released by the Association of American Publishers.
According to reports on Publishers Marketplace and Publishers Weekly, adult e-book sales rose 38% to $92m, with trade paperbacks up 10% to $131.2m, while hardcover sales rose marginally to $126.2m. Sales of mass market paperbacks fell 15.6%.
Overall, adult trade sales from the publishers who contribute data to the AAP's panel were $386.4m, up 10% on April 2011. Children's and young adult sales rose 24% to $120.9m, with e-books up 29% to $7.5m.
Publishers Marketplace notes that e-books were 19.6% of trade sales in April, 23.8% of adult and 11.6% of children's sales. For the first four months of 2012 e-books accounted for 23% of all trade sales, according to the numbers quoted.