For while now, ebooks have been touted as the next big thing. In 2010, Mark Coker of Smashwords fame predicted that by 2020, 95% of reading would be on screens.

But recently we are seeing the industry that has built up around ebooks and indie authors, stumbling and slowing down. Subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited are suffering from a decline in per-page rates, whilst Scribd recently announced it was ditching its unlimited subscription offering.

Rakuten, who own Kobo, recorded a 7.8bn yen impairment charge noting that Kobo “has been impacted by a slower start to the rise of the global ebook industry than we originally expected, and hence its business plan fell behind original targets”.

In the UK, the five biggest publishers reported a drop in in ebook sales in 2015.

But is this the end of the line for the growth in the ebook industry? Not likely.

In 1990, Gartner devised a model called the Hype Cycle, which attempted to codify the cycle that innovations typically follow. It shows that new innovations enjoy a period that they poetically refer to as the ‘Peak of inflated expectations’, which is followed by a visit to the ‘Trough of disillusionment’.