Someone did a(n imperfect) analysis of the states and their consumption of e-books. They compiled Smashwords e-book sales data from Barnes & Noble from December 2010 through March 2011. This is, of course, a limited and limiting sample, using a single e-book publisher and only looking at sales on one e-book device (of course, that’s my device – the Nook), presumably because the Kindle doesn’t support Smashwords books.

They put together two charts. The first is basically useless. It measures what percentage of total e-book sales take place in each state. Unsurprisingly, the four states with the greatest percentage are… the four states with the largest population (Texas, California, New York, and Florida).

The second chart puts together a list of per capita e-book consumption, which could actually tell us something. The first four states are among the most rural and sparsely populated in America (Alaska, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming). States where visits to a bookstore could become problematic.

My own “state” of Washington, DC is actually dead last in the per capita sale of Smashwords e-books. Again, despite my own ownership of a Nook, I can understand this. DC is just chock full of bookstores – Politics & Prose, Busboys & Poets, at least two Barnes & Nobles (and we used to have two Borders), Second Story Books, Capitol Hill Books, Bridgestreet Books, Kramerbooks & Afterwords… In other words, there’s no lack of access to bookstores in this town.

Oddly (or not – the state does have some great independent bookstores), California, the home of Silicon Valley and much of nation’s tech industry, ranked next to last.