Readers committed to physical books can give a sigh of relief, as new figures reveal that ebook sales are falling while sales of paper books are growing – and the shift is being driven by younger generations.

纸质书的死忠可以松一口气了，新数据显示电子书销量正在下滑，而纸质书的销量则在上升，而且这一转变是由年轻一代驱动的。

More than 360m books were sold in 2016 – a 2% jump in a year that saw UK consumers spend an extra 6%, or ￡100m, on books in print and ebook formats², according to findings by the industry research group Nielsen in its annual books and consumer survey. The data also revealed good news for bricks-and-mortar bookshops, with a 4% rise in purchases across the UK.

根据市场调研公司尼尔森的报告，2016年英国售出超3.6亿本书，英国消费者在纸质书和电子书上花费总计达1亿英镑（合8.5亿元人民币），数量和金额分别比上一年多出2%和6%。数据还显示，实体书店生意好转，去年英国实体书店销量总体上涨4%。

While sales through shops increased 7% in 2016, ebook sales declined by 4%. It is the second year in a row that ebook sales have fallen, and only the second time that annual ebook sales have done so since industry bodies began monitoring sales a decade ago.

尽管2016年英国书店销量总体上涨7%，但是电子书的销量却下降了4%。这是电子书销量连续第二年下跌，自从行业协会十年前开始监控电子书销量以来，这是电子书年度销量第二次出现下滑。

In 2015, the Publishers Association found that digital content sales had fallen from ￡563m in 2014 to ￡554m, while physical book sales HAD increased from ￡2.74bn to ￡2.76bn. The Bookseller also discovered a similar result, finding in its own report about the five biggest general trade publishers in the UK – Penguin³ Random⁴ House, Hachette, HarperCollins, Pan Macmillan and Simon & Schuster – that their ebook sales collectively fell 2.4% in 2015.

2015年，英国出版商协会发现，电子书销售额从2014年的5.63亿英镑降至5.54亿英镑，而纸质书的销售额则从27.4亿英镑升至27.6亿英镑。《书商》周刊在其对英国五大出版商（企鹅、阿歇特、哈珀柯林斯、麦克米伦、西蒙与舒斯特）的调查报告中也发现了相似的结果，2015年这五大出版商的电子书销量整体下降2.4%。

The shift was attributed to the explosion in adult colouring books, as well as a year of high-profile fiction releases, including The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. “Readers take a pleasure in a physical book that does not translate well on to digital,” the Publishers Association report read.

这一转变要归功于成人涂色书销量的暴涨，以及该年度几部备受瞩目的小说的出版，包括宝拉?霍金斯的《火车上的女孩》和哈珀?李的《设立守望者》。出版商协会的报告写道：“读者在纸质书中能享受到电子书所无法传达的东西。”

But Nielsen’s survey of 2016 attributed the increase in print sales to children’s fiction and to younger generations preferring physical books to e-readers. A 2013 survey by the youth research agency Voxburner found that 62% of 16- to 24-year-olds preferred print books to ebooks. The most popular reason given was: “I like to hold the product.” While Nielsen found that 50% of all fiction sales were in ebook format¹, only 4% of children’s fiction was digital.

然而，尼尔森的2016年度调查将纸质书销量的上涨归因于童话书以及更爱读纸质书的年轻一代。青年研究机构Voxburner 的2013年度调查发现，16到24岁的年轻人有62%更爱读纸质书而非电子书。他们给出的最普遍的原因是：“我喜欢捧着书本的感觉。”与此同时，尼尔森发现，售出的小说中有50%是电子书，但售出的童话书中只有4%是电子书。

Steve Bohme, research director at Nielsen Book Research UK, who presented the data on Monday ahead of this year’s London book fair, said young people were using books as a break from their devices or social media. “We are seeing that books are a respite⁵, particularly for young people who are so busy digitally,” he said.

13日，尼尔森图书研究公司英国区的研究室主任史蒂夫?伯梅在本年度的伦敦书展举行前夕发表了这些数据。他表示，年轻人通过阅读图书从电子设备和社交媒体中获得喘息机会。伯梅说：“我们发现书籍成为一种小憩的方式，特别是对那些终日埋头于电子产品的年轻人而言。”

“Over the last few years we have seen a return to favouring print, partly from what is really successful, this year being non-fiction and children’s books,” he said. While adult colouring books were popular in 2015, last year saw books about healthy cooking and the latest Harry⁶ Potter sell well – which Bohme noted⁷ are “books that tend to translate better in the print form”.

他说道：“过去几年我们发现人们又开始回归纸质书，其中一部分原因是这几年出版了一些非常成功的作品，而今年则是因为非小说类书籍和儿童图书。”2015年成人涂色书大热，去年最畅销的则是健康烹饪类书籍和最新一部《哈利?波特》——伯梅指出“这些书都是纸质书的阅读体验更好。”

The Nielsen survey contained another first: mobile phones and tablets overtook e-readers as the most common device used to read ebooks, with readers favouring multifunctional devices over dedicated⁸ e-reader brands such as Kindle⁹ and Nook.

尼尔森的调查还发现了另一个“第一”：手机和平板电脑首次超越电子阅读器成为阅读电子书最常用的设备。比起Kindle和Nook等专用电子阅读器，读者更爱用多功能设备看书。

While ebook sales had plateaued, Bohme said it was important to remember that the figures were still higher than they were five years ago, holding a 25% share in 2016, compared with 26% in 2015 and 18% in 2012. The average ebook price increased to ￡7.

虽然电子书销量陷入停滞，伯梅表示，我们要记住，电子书的市场占有率还是比五年前高，2016年电子书占比25%，2015年占比26%，而2012年电子书只占18%。此外，电子书的平均价格上涨到了7英镑。

Bohme said ebooks sales would continue to decline in 2017, barring a new development in e-reader technology. “One thing we’ve seen is that when print sales surge, industry confidence in the print increases. If publishers are confident, they can have huge success,” he said. “If we have a couple of years of that success story, print sales will keep going up.”

伯梅说，电子书的销量在2017年会继续下滑，这将阻碍电子阅读技术的进一步发展。他说道：“有一件事我们是可以预见的，当纸质书销量上涨时，行业对纸质书的信心就会增强。如果出版商有信心，他们就会获得巨大成功。如果这种成功持续几年，纸质书的销量将会不断上升。”