eBooks may be mobile, portable - from platform to platform - and for people on the move, but the retailers and publishers that produce them sure like to take their time when tallying up the stats about how the market is performing—The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF), the eBook trade and standards association, recently released statistics covering the second quarter of 2005.

So how is the eBook market doing (as of Q2 2005)? Well, it would seem.

According to the IDPF, eBook publishers reported increases in sales over the same period a year earlier of 36 percent with 484,933 units sold. Revenues grew as well, up 69 percent to $3,182,499. And the number of published titles (1024) increased 24 percent also.

Extremely modest compared to the good old book publishing biz, but alright when you consider the raw materials of the trade are bits and bytes and not ink and trees. Paper is still the preffered medium for certian types of reading.

Fourteen publishers contributed to the Q2 2005 report, down by two from the same report a year earlier. These included Elib AB; Ellora's Cave Publishing; Fictionwise, Inc.; Hard Shell Word Factory; HarperCollins; Houghton Mifflin Company; John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; McGraw-Hill Professional; Pearson Education; Random House; RosettaBooks LLC; Stonehouse Press; Time Warner Book Group and Zondervan.

The top-selling eBook last year was Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith by George Lucas, while Dan Brown landed three titles—The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons and Digital Fortress—in the top five. Michael Crichton's finished at number four with State of Fear. Click here to see a full list of 2005's top 30 eBooks.