Barnes & Noble released their quarterly earnings today, and while overall the company took a loss, in one category they seem to have outstripped not only the public's expectations but their own: digital.

In the ebook narrative, we sometimes forget about Barnes & Noble. Amazon [2] has achieved metonymic recognition for its Kindle [2]--a flight attendant recently asked me, while pointing at my Sony Pocket Reader, if I could turn off my "Kindle"--and Apple [2] has attracted tremendous excitement and buzz with its iBookstore.

But Barnes & Noble has a fine ebook reader of its own [3], the Nook, and its multi-platform Nook software [4] (iPad, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, PC, Mac) is uniformly excellent. The store is well stocked, by most accounts significantly larger than Kindle's, and its prices for both hardware and content are competitive. It also offers a few key advantages, including a cool lending feature and support for rented library ebooks. According to Barnes & Noble's quarterly report, customers have noticed.

The company calls sales "nothing short of spectacular" and "consistently above plan," both for new customers and existing members. Nook owners who were previous Barnes & Noble "Members" have increased their spending by 20% since the purchase, and 25% of all Nook customers are new to Barnes & Noble's online market. Though Barnes & Noble doesn't suggest what that might mean in terms of market share, the company does note this little tidbit:

In nine short months, since the launch of its NOOK eBook Reader, and one year after it entered the eBook arena, Barnes & Noble has already achieved greater market share in digital books than it has in physical books.

Seeing as how Barnes & Noble is the number one bookseller in the country with a market share of around 16% [5], that suggests its market share in ebooks could be near 20%, as we'd heard [6].

Dan Nosowitz, the author of this post, can be followed [7] on Twitter, corresponded with [8] via email, and stalked in Brooklyn (no link for that one--you'll have to do the legwork yourself).