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Amazon recently bought Shelfari, a Seattle company that will add a social network to Kindle allowing readers to form online book clubs and rate and discuss titles.

In the first four months of this year Penguin’s sales of e-books surpassed all those made in 2007. So far, Makinson said, the company had found little difference between the bestselling titles sold in paper form or as downloads. Price had not affected sales, he said. Penguin’s bestselling e-books generally cost as much to download as they do in print.

The market for e-books is still tiny — “less than Å% of sales”, Makinson estimates — but those sales are growing fast. He expects e-books to account for 1% of sales by 2010 and, as retailers such as Waterstone’s come on board, the pace of growth is unlikely to slow.

“We’ve moved past the point where e-books are something for geeks,” said Makinson.

His view is supported by rival publishers’ figures. Simon & Schuster recently announced that by June this year sales of e-books had exceeded 2007’s total. The company expects revenue in the format to double for the full year.

Last week Random House announced sales for e-books were already more than double the total for 2007. The trade body, the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) estimates that sales of e-books in March 2008 were 58.9% higher than in March 2007.

Makinson said paper-based books were still his primary business and he didn’t see that changing soon. As a result, it is hard to see how it will change the publishing business. Although there is less cost associated with an e-book — no printing, warehousing or delivery — the market is still so small that when they sell an e-book they don’t know where, or whether, they are losing a sale of a physical book, said Makinson. “Consequently, we don’t manufacture or ship any fewer physical books at the moment.”

Only when e-books reach 5% of the market will publishers get a clearer idea of how the new digital format will affect their supply chain, he said.

In the US, Amazon leads the e-book revolution but the company has been guarded about sales of Kindles and the number of books downloaded. Bezos has said that when books are available in both traditional and electronic format, Kindle already accounts for 12% of sales.

The IDPF’s executive director, Michael Smith, said: “I don’t know whether we are at the tipping point yet, but it’s close.” He believes the combination of new technology and enthusiasm from much of the publishing industry seems ready to give the format new impetus.

In the US the big battle has so far been between Kindle and Sony’s Reader but Apple is also staking its claim. According to Smith, 35,000 e-books have been bought and 500,000 downloaded free of charge onto iPhones since July, when Apple opened up its technology to third-party firms that are offering book-reading software.

In Japan and Korea mobile phones now dominate sections of publishing. Harlequin, the world’s largest romance novel publisher, sells all its books in Japan directly to mobile.

Smith believes the more e-books there are, the more readers they will attract. He travels frequently and often lends his e-book device, a Sony Reader, to fellow travellers.

“They usually increase the print size but it quickly becomes just another way to read. You’re reading a book, not an e-book,” he said.

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