Now that reading books, magazines and newspapers on electronic devices is becoming more popular a profile of the users and of those that supply the electronic content is becoming clear.
First, as is seen in the graphic below, supplied by the research firm, Bowker, E-books account for only about 2% of all industry sales of books. The figure for newspapers and magazines may be different, but there is no data for that segment of the market for now.

Paper books still account for 91% of all books sold, with audio books and eBooks accounting for about 2% each. The 2% is up from near zero just a few years ago, so it is making significant inroads in the market for books.

The second half of the chart above shows who is doing the selling. The large chains, Barnes and Noble for one, and Borders for another, exemplify this market. This group accounts for almost 30% of all book sales. Notice that the on-line sales, denoted as E-commerce, now account for 20% and is in second place.

This group is dominated by Amazon, but there are other competitors who are also making inroads in this market, including Barnes and Nobel, Sony, and many others.
The next info coming from Bowker is off their website, and it shows the income breakdown of people who read eBooks.

If the top classes are added, then we can conclude that 75% of those who read electronically earn between $35K a year or  more.

The bottom of the income ladder, accounts for 25% of eBook reading. The bottom is rung is from zero income to $35K per year.

It is not news that those with higher educational achievements read more than those with less education, at least as a group. So the income data is in line with higher expected incomes for those who buy the most eBooks.

This data also explains much of Barnes and Nobel’s panic to get their eReader device, the Nook, into competition with Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Touch Reader. The owners of these devices will tend to shop where they can get content that fits their hardware, so they shop for books at the same place.

The stakes are high, and the competition is going to get a lot more vicious when the 40 new entrants to the eReading device market show up in the second half of this year. This includes many new vendors, none of whom have book stores of any consequence. This is an unfolding drama that will prevail in the market for several years if not decades.