Books are undergoing a massive transformation from being a physical object to something electronic, or an "e-book". And while e-book sales still make up only a small proportion of book sales (1% in most OECD countries, 2-3% in the United Kingdom and 8% in the United States), consumers spent an estimated USD 966 million on them in 2010. By 2015, the industry is anticipated to nearly triple to almost USD 3 billion. Just as notable is the recent dramatic rate of growth in OECD markets for e-books; for example, on 19 May 2011, Amazon announced that its sales of e-books had overtaken sales of all forms of print books combined.

 

Ongoing policy issues related to e-books include differing tax rates in countries between physical books and e-books, consumer lock-in to specific platforms, limitations on how users can read and share their purchased content, laws prohibiting discounting of e-books, and a lack of transparency about how personal data on reading habits is being used.

 

Value added tax (VAT) rates for printed books and e-books
Selected countries, 2011

Country	VAT printed book	VAT e-book
Italy	4%	21%
France	5.5%	7%
Germany	7%	19%
United Kingdom	0	20%
Spain	4%	18%
Luxembourg	3%	15%
Sweden	6%	25% if purchased online

 

Download the October 2012 report "E-books: Developments and Policy Considerations"

• PDF
• EPUB, e-reader version (e.g. for Apple and generic e-book readers)
• MOBI, Amazon Kindle version

 

Background 

This report is part of an OECD series on digital content. Other studies include online news, public sector information, film and video, user-created content, mobile content, online computer games, music, and scientific publishing.

 

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