Claims that ebooks are failing...

Some articles are so sneaky. This article starts by claiming loudly that ebook sales are down significantly (17%) and talks about at length how everybody now are into paperbooks. (Not reading actually, mainly the books as artefacts*.)

 ... And then near the end (after many have stopped reading) comes this information:
 “The figures from the Publishing Association should be treated with some caution. They exclude self-published books, a sizable market for ebooks. And, according to Dan Franklin, a digital publishing specialist, more than 50% of genre sales are on ebook. Digital book sales overall are up 6%.” 

There is a whole lot of difference between between 17% down and 6% up!
 And how it is justified to exclude self-published books from statistics when considering the book market is puzzling to me. That can only be explained by the traditional publishers not wanting to even look at self-publishing because it is so successful in ebooks, and it’s a frightening competitor.

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* I love books as artefacts, I have many beautiful ones. But it has little to do with the content, which after all is the point of books. Books expand the mind, but only if you open them.