It seems like barely a week goes by these days without some new news story about the continuing rise of e-books – and this week is no different. It has been announced that during the first half of 2012, companies that took part in the Publishers Association’s Sales Monitor reported a value rise in the sales of e-books of 188 per cent.

In terms of sales volume, there was an 89.1 per cent growth in overall e-book sales for January-June 2012. This includes significant growth in areas such as children’s digital fiction and digital non-fiction. However, sales of physical books were down 3.8 per cent in terms of volume and down 0.4 per cent in value. Digital books have also taken 12.9 per cent of the value of all book sales, up more than 5 per cent on the same period in 2011.

Despite the decline in print books, the overall books market – combining digital and physical books – has grown by more than 6 per cent when compared with the same six month period from last year. A little spot of good news for authors and readers alike, perhaps, that people are still so keen to buy books in a variety of formats.

You can read more about the rise in e-book sales here.