The growth of eBooksAn industry timeline

1971Michael Hart started the Project Gutenberg, with the aim of establishing an electronic library of 10k books.

1987Computer game company, Eastgate Systems, publish a book by Michael Joyce on floppy disk.

1990John Galuszkza creates an eBook display program called PC-Book.

1993Bibliobytes launched, and becomes the first official company to sell eBooks over the internet.

1994Rich Hoy launches Fiction Works, a company built to produce eBooks.

1998The first handheld eBook reader is launched, named Rocket. This enabled eBooks to be downloaded through a PC and cable.

1999

Simon & Schuster creates an imprint called ibooks and becomes the first publisher to publish both eBooks and print products.

Dick Brass predicts that by 2018, 90% of books sold would be eBooks.

2000Microsoft launches its first eBook reader software and partners with Amazon to sell eBooks.

2004

Google launches join venture with major libraries to scan books. This initiative was known as Google Book Search.

2007

Amazon releases the Kindle, made for the US market, which sells out in five and a half hours.

Scribd is launched; a site used to share and host documents online.

2008

eBooks start to be sold on iPhones.

2009

Amazon releases the Kindle 2 and eBooks beat physical book sales for the first time.

Scribd partners with Simon and Schuster to start selling eBooks.

2010

Year ends with $966 million in eBooks sold to consumers. Estimates made that industry will triple by 2015.

2013

Scribd launches unlimited subscription service for eBooks, giving access to customers for a monthly fee.

2015Macmillan becomes the third big publisher to sign up to subscription eBook services, alongside HarperCollins and Simon & Schuster.

2016Sribd titles continue to grow, as Macmillan increase their titles on the service by around 6000.

More readingThe eBook market is still incredibly strong, but sales of Amazon's Kindle are falling.

Are physical books competing again? Is the bookshop back?

Read more on the Ribbonfish blog.