Electronic book readers such as Amazon's Kindle are transforming academic publishing much faster than the consumer market, according to Springer Science & Business Media, the second largest scientific, technical and medical publisher.

While most "trade" publishers expect e-book revenues to account for no more than 3 per cent of sales this year, e-books accounted for a "significant" amount of Springer's turnover, Olaf Ernst, its president of e-product management and innovation, told the FT.