5% of its total sales in Q4, says CEO in a letter.
E-books accounted for 5% of publisher Hachette's sales in Q4 this year, according to a letter sent to authors by CEO Tim Hely Hutchinson.
As revealed by The Bookseller, Hutchinson's letter said that in the US specifically, e-books tripled their share of Hachette's business from 1% to 3% in 2009, and then again to 9% this year.
"Our market in Britain and the Commonwealth is not far behind and, actually, I would not be surprised if the British and Australian markets were to end up with a higher percentage of ebook sales than that of the USA," writes Hutchinson.
Hachette currently has 5,000 e-books available, with plans to boost this to 15,000 by 2012.
Its CEO also claims Google's move into e-books "might be another game-changer", but warns that Hachette remains cautious in its dealings with the internet giant.
"Google has not, to put it mildly, always been a favourite of those of us who live by copyright, and any agreements we make with Google will be negotiated with great care, protecting your and our mutual interests."
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