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Amazon Says Now Selling More E-Books Than Print Books

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Amazon.com this morning says the company is now selling more e-Books than print books.

The crossover comes less than four years after the debut of the Kindle e-reader in November 2007; Amazon notes that it has been selling hardcover and paperback books over the Web since July 1995.

"Customers are now choosing Kindle books more often than print books," CEO Jeff Bezos said in a statement. "We had high hopes that this would happen eventually, but we never imagined it would happen this quickly - we've been selling print books for 15 years and Kindle books for less than four years."

The company also noted that the five-week-old ad-supported "Kindle with Special Offers" has become the best selling version of its family of e-readers.

Amazon says that since April 1, it has sold 105 Kindle books for every 100 print books sold, not counting free Kindle books. The company said that print and e-books combined have driven the fastest growth in Amazon's overall book business this year in both units and dollars in over 10 years.

Amazon said it has sold 3x as many books so far in 2011 as it did in the comparable period last year.

The company said that since the debut of its U.K. Kindle store, Amazon now sells more Kindle books than hardcover books in the U.K. Since April 1, Amazon customers are buying Kindle books over hardcovers at a rate of better than 2-to-1.

AMZN this morning is up $1.42, or 0.7%, to $198.51.