Real Books Are Back: E-Book Sales Plunge Nearly 20%

Loved my ebook, but I got a tablet and it does everything it did and more so why get another?
 
digital for life. Sales down maybe because of tablets, and the fact that e-readers last forever? I've had mine for almost 8 years and it still works great as a reader. Moved houses 4 years ago and never unpacked our huge collection of books. Can't stand carrying around multiple books when it can all be on one slim device.
 
The market might just be saturated for e-readers? Not a lot of innovation in the last few years. I have intentionally not upgraded my Kindle Fire since they started to shove Alexa, microphones and cameras on them. I don't need that crap and I won't pay for it.

As far as the books go, my favorite authors/series can't keep up with me. Takes longer to write than to read, no doubt.
 
I prefer the ones with moving pictures and audio that are displayed on large screens.
 
E-books are great when I'm traveling, since I usually just keep them on my phone. But nothing beats the physical copy and if I'm at home, that's what I read.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
There's no bargain in e-books though. Once upon a time the physical book was 90% of the cost of publishing, yet the price doesn't drop 90% when you skip the tree carcass.
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Not to mention you can't sell you're eBook in most cases. Just like with Digital Versions of games, here they ask the same price or more for them and yet you get less. You cant sell them, you can't keep it safe to play in 10 years, you can't play it offline if the power goes out for a few days. Sooo many things of negative value and yet people are to willing to give up their freedoms/rights all for some small or short lived convenience, one small cut at a time.

If they let me have a copy of the Digital content that i could sell or give away because i own it and it was actually priced for what it is (a super SUPER cheap copy of some bits that gets sold to millions of people with the smallest of actual work to do so), then i'll consider it. Until then, digital copies of things are rarely bought by me because there's rarely value to them.


NOTE: of course we all want the benefits of digital copies, thats what makes them great. But i see the bigger picture thats been slowly forced upon consumers for over a decade now and i'm sick of it. Rent Seeking and forcing less options and rights on the consumer and charging more for it. I loath this and the average shmucks ability to be ignorant to it all and foce me to go along with it because they don't care/are to stupid to see they are getting bent over and asking for it with no lube.
 
Spire3660 said:
I just picked up Ready Player One in paperback. It was 25% cheaper than the Kindle version and i can give it to someone else when im done with it. I had it delivered to my door in under 2 hours with Prime Now. Its stupid that its cheaper to get the paperback physically delivered to me than to have it sent to my Kindle.
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So true, lots of price fixing going on with e-books by the publishers. It is ridiculous that any physical book is ever cheaper than the e-book, yet we find that all the time. Some of the publishers are absolutely horrid about it, pricing the e-book at more than the original hardcover price. I think part of the issue is that publishers have much less opportunity to screw over writers with e-books as there is hard accounting of all sales and they can't get away with BS like loss and spoilage.
 
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leathco016 said:
I prefer digital. You can never misplace it, can read on multiple devices, can alter font, text, and background to suit your preferences, can keep your entire collection on a device smaller than a single paperback, with the loss of a certain type of tactile feedback being the only real negative. The pros significantly outweigh the cons for me. However, I also feel ebook prices for some books are overpriced, considering the savings publishers have on an ebook version versus a physical one.
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Another nice thing is syncing between audio and e-books allowing you to switch freely as well as the immersion reading feature that kindle has.
 
Croak said:
I love the comments like "nothing beats the feel of a good paperback".

People don't seem to remember the snobbery against paperbacks back in the day, saying "nothing beats the feel of a good hardcover".

And the hardcovers probably got shit from the folks that thought "nothing beats the feel of a good scroll", and the scroll people got shit from the "nothing beats the feel of a good stone tablet" crowd, and the stone tablet people got shit from the "nothing beats the feel of a good cave painting" crowd, and the cave painting folks got shit from the fans of "nothing beats a good fireside oral story"...

Personally, I don't think there's any damned charm or soul in a format...the charm and soul, such as they are, come from the content. And if your chosen content delivery method works for you, go for it. Ain't no need to bash on different tastes in readers, and I'm grateful we still HAVE people reading for pleasure.

Audio books, now those are the real abominations.
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Paper backs tend to be shit with poor quality paper among other sins. Lots of hardcovers are the same. Occasionally they do release very nice hard covers though. The only hardcovers I have that I actually adore are Cryptonomicon and Anathem both by Neal Stephenson. Somehow he managed to get his publisher to spring for pretty artisan paper and binding. The feel of those is insane.
 
As much as I love paper books, ebooks are all around superior for me.

I don't need 800lbs of fire hazard sitting up my attic.
 
For toss away fiction...ebooks work for me.

For serious works, be they fiction or not, a real book.

If I want to take notes and refer back to something, an ebook totally fails. As long as I'm in "full speed ahead" mode, a kindle works. Anything else...paper.
 
Digital? Physical? As a wise child from the lands of advertisement once said, "Why not both?"

Generally, if I would get it as a paperback I get it as an e-book. This also includes new authors and small print houses that do more and more digital to get their people out there. I've gone through a lot of books that only cost between free to 2.99 for the first book of a series. Cheap gamble to find a new author in todays market.

For non-fiction or books I REALLY like it's hardback. If it is going to be kept, it's going to be kept as something that will last being handled by (hopefully) many hands. Plus, those are easier to find used and in good condition at a acceptable price.

Lastly are graphic novels and manga. For color I prefer physical but for black and white both physical and digital work. Unfortunately I have learned though experience that if it is a manga/manwa series you really like you will probably want it digital eventually anyway since many volumes are not made to last years and can fall apart, become very brittle, fade and otherwise become hard to read or handle.

Another nice thing about digital? A book will never go out of print. Someone, somewhere will have a copy of it even if it goes away due to...whatever reasons. (Oh, how I wish there was a full compilation of the Wild Cards series. sniff.)
 
I never stopped buying books even though you can get an E version for cents on the dollar.
There is many times in conversations with people I will say "I have a book you should read on that subject".
Doesn't quite work that way with an E-book. And that begs the question, do you actually OWN an E-book?
Can you share it with someone without violating copyrights? Never worried about that with a real book.
 
I am still on parchment scrolls, nothing like the feel of tough parchment when casting spells and mixing potions. Yes I do have E-Books but the large part of my collection is on paper. I read alot when in my deer stand and paper holds up better when i fall asleep and drop it to the ground. My choice these days has a lot to do with price. I wanted to read the entire Zane Gray library and was able to but all his E-books for .99 that would have cost hundreds on paper. My cabinet making, furniture restoration and blacksmithing books are a must on paper. much easier to draw notes etc on paper.
 
E-readers going tits up isn't a surprise. Displays in phones and tablets are getting better and better and they then just become an add on logistical hassle.

That being said, the only place e-books haven't kicked old school printed books up and down the block is gifting. A good book is something you can gift to a very broad range of people and have it be both affordable and thoughtful. All the e-book players have totally shit the bed with regards to even attempting to fill that niche. I can't even gift an e-book like I can a game on steam, much less do it on a specific date and have some mechanism for plan B if they already have it.
 
I would like to make the switch to e-books, but the readers are just too fracking small for the books I like to read (RPGs). When there is an affordable 11.5" e-reader with an SD card and excellent PDF support, then I will be a happy camper. Until then, it's just another gimmick to me.
 
I love eBooks. I love my Kindle. I hate the fact that I'm charged MORE in some cases for an eBook rather than a hardcover. Or more than a paperback.
 
I remember reading my favorite book series in hardcover and how bad my neck hurt after.

Now with my self lite ebook I can relax in a good position and read for hours without pain. So to me hardcover is dead and will stay that way.
 
Spire3660 said:
I just picked up Ready Player One in paperback. It was 25% cheaper than the Kindle version and i can give it to someone else when im done with it. I had it delivered to my door in under 2 hours with Prime Now. Its stupid that its cheaper to get the paperback physically delivered to me than to have it sent to my Kindle.
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It really depends. New ebooks are normally right around the same price of the paperback. BUT Amazon frequently has deals to buy books for .99 to $3.99, they have a stout selection of "classic" literature omnibuses for anywhere from free to $1.99, with Prime I have a pretty big rotating selection of books every month), and if you really want a classic you can download them free legally.

Just a "few" books that I recently picked up:

Slaughterhouse 5 - $2.12
Democracy in America (with illustrations) - $1.06
100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 1 [Pride and Prejudice; Jane Eyre; Wuthering Heights; Tarzan of the Apes; etc] - Free
100 Books You Must Read Before You Die - volume 2 [newly updated] [Ulysses; Dangerous Liaisons; Of Human Bondage; Moby Dick] - Free
HG Wells; Classic novels and short stories - Free
50 Classic Western Stories You Should Read (Golden Deer Classics): The Last Of The Mohicans, The Log Of A Cowboy, etc - Free
Jules Verne : The Complete 'Extraordinary Voyages' Cycle (All 54 Volumes) - Free
 
Dedicated E-Readers may be going away but the apps are out there and probably on every phone. I prefer real books when I have the luxury, but on the go I love my Kindle or Amazon app.

Also I think Books are a pretty cool thing to pass down to your kids, I haven't bothered with paperbacks in years, I get hard cover nice quality books these days, if it isn't worth that kind of investment then its going to be an e-version of the book.
Ive recently developed a love for leather bound editions of great classics.
 
7-8 years ago I worked in a library for a year inbetween jobs. The major concern was that E-book would bring down the library. Librarys have adapted to librarys of E-books and you can get many of the new best sellers a week before publishing on e-book. There was a big surge of ebooks and paper dropped off however it has normalized and paper is here to stay.
 
People are going to paper books for the same reason every amateur "writer" (blogger) insists on working in some public place like Starbucks and people love to narcissistically post about every little thing they are doing on their vacation trips on social media. "What's the point of doing X if there is no one around to see me doing it" - Every hipster ever, probably

Reading for personal enjoyment is FANTASTIC on e-readers, as its just so practical.

But its anti-social, or at least lacking in any social aspect. When my e-reader is sitting on my living room table, I can't virtue signal about how I'm reading about women's rights in Saudi Arabia or something to impress some girl I brought over. As I'm sitting in public transportation, when I'm perusing on my e-reader, no one can see the title of the book so I can show everyone I'm reading about "XYZ Bullshit" big on the cover to make a statement to everyone around me. I can read a hundred books on my e-reader/tablet or just one comic book, and no one will be able to tell the difference, so I can't have a huge bookshelf at my home with books that are meant to impress upon others how well read and intelligent I am.

So while e-readers might be the best tool available for people who just want to read, paper books are for social reading so you can signal to the world what you're reading and make a statement about yourself. And with the hipster trend these days, its no surprise that many will accept the impracticality of the obsolete medium for that feature.
 
wootius said:
Loved my ebook, but I got a tablet and it does everything it did and more so why get another?
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Battery life and readability. Battery life of an eBook is about a week compared to 8 hours of a tablet. eInk is easier on the eyes due to no backlight.
 
rezerekted said:
Battery life and readability. Battery life of an eBook is about a week compared to 8 hours of a tablet. eInk is easier on the eyes due to no backlight.
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AMOLEDS are great in bright conditions, have no backlight, are more energy efficient, with ink dark blacks, and colors that truly pop. I enjoy it on my tablet.

To each his own, but no one should be reading more than two hours straight anyway honestly without taking a break, and tablets rapid charge insanely fast these days.
 
rezerekted said:
Battery life and readability. Battery life of an eBook is about a week compared to 8 hours of a tablet. eInk is easier on the eyes due to no backlight.
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True on all the points you mentioned.
Insane battery life (weeks, not hours).
eInk (think paperwhite) is just like print on paper.

Not to mention hundreds of books at your fingertips.

As for the decline in e-reader sales, everyone has a phone, tablet or laptop with the kindle app.
 
I was a big book guy. My "library" consisted of a couple walls in my den. Now? Books are in the basement, and walls have some nice furniture against them. I own about 5 or so Kindle's and will never go back. Changing the background and font size is too big a boon. On top of that, the sheer convenience of purchasing books in seconds is awesome. Kindle Unlimited is the balls if you are an avid reader.
 
kju1 said:
There was a study that showed that reading real books has a better benefit than reading a backlit screen. I dont own any e-readers so I am not sure how many of them are backlit vs not but I am sure that is not the only physical benefit you get from paper books.

Also I refuse to buy e-books because you don't actually own them. Most ebook sellers (i.e. Amazon, apple etc) reserve the right to pull the book from your device at any point in time should they chose to. Ironically this was already done with an Orwell novel (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html?_r=0). Cant do that with my paper book.

Imagine if suddenly the country you live in says that content is no longer allowed...your book just got pulled. Own a physical copy and the only thing the government can do is come knocking at your door...IF they know you own it.
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B&N tied or used to tie books to the credit card number. My dad cancelled the credit card number and lost access to all of his purchased library. Crap.

A real book you could reread/resell, pay less money and strain your eyes less (in most cases).
 
rezerekted said:
Battery life and readability. Battery life of an eBook is about a week compared to 8 hours of a tablet. eInk is easier on the eyes due to no backlight.
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Yeah, I have a kindle I do reading at home on. But when I go out and about I'm just taking the tablet for general use, so I end up doing more reading on it.
 
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