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The Times's bestseller lists, established in 1935, are arguably the definitive metric for success in the book publishing world. The addition of two new lists for e-books points to the growing importance of the medium to the industry -- and underlines the fact that what may be selling best in hardback or paperback may not be what's selling best in electronic format.
U.S. consumers are projected to spend $1 billion in e-books this year, according to a recent report from Forrester, who also expects that sales will surpass $3 billion by 2015. Earlier this year, e-tailer Amazon announced that it is now selling more e-books than hardcover books, and that it expects e-books to overtake paperback sales by the end of 2011.