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E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

nytimes.com

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Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#31

Post by derefr »

TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

> I also think technical reference books (like programming guides) are best served in paper.

The iBooks extended format (the one with hierarchical pages and pop-out asides and embedded media and so forth) is amazing for reference books. I wish Apple had any desire to open it up and get other device manufacturers displaying it; it'd be the perfect replacement for the PDF manuals that ship with most things, while actually enhancing accessibility.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#32

Post by hga »

hullo wrote: post #9

Buried paragraph at the end of the article that discounts the entire piece (as a piece about readers rather than as a piece about publishers ): "It is also possible that a growing number of people are still buying and reading e-books, just not from traditional publishers. The declining e-book sales reported by publishers do not account for the millions of readers who have migrated to cheap and plentiful self-publishe…

Indeed; in other recent (last month or so) reports that others have mentioned in blog postings, indie e-book sales are skyrocketing. Anecdotally, a number of indie authors are reporting healthy and increasing sales.

And of course after the big five (and I suppose others) renegotiated their contracts with Amazon to agency pricing, to raise e-book prices above $10, often more than paperbacks and sometimes more than hardbacks (see other comments in this topic to that effect), their e-book sales, unit and revenue, took a substantial hit.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#33

Post by derefr »

LordKano wrote: post #28
TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

After a long day of working in the garden, on my car or on a home improvement project, I like to relax in a hot bath with a good book. I'm not comfortable doing that with my Kindle. I may not be the average book consumer but I buy a lot of books.

That's a problem with the device more than anything. The ultimate e-book reader form-factor (that all the device manufacturers are gunning to eventually get to, with research into flexible e-ink et al) will look like nothing more than a laminated sheet of paper, and would be pretty much just as safe to get wet.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#34

Post by derefr »

Nav_Panel wrote: post #22
TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

I hold fairly different opinions, though I agree that digital reading sources can make sense for completely new books read for pleasure. As a longtime physical product, paper has a lot of benefits. My dad can give me a book he read in college, just grab it off the shelf. I can go buy books extremely cheaply secondhand, sometimes free. I can't imagine paying $10 for an ebook when I can go to a used bookstore and pay $…

> My dad can give me a book he read in college, just grab it off the shelf. I can go buy books extremely cheaply secondhand, sometimes free. I can't imagine paying $10 for an ebook when I can go to a used bookstore and pay $3, and then I own it forever. Additionally, once I own it I can share it, give it away, write in the margins, dog-ear pages, leave post-it notes, etc. I also can't imagine a world where 20 years later I can trivially give my old Kindle eBooks to my children.

That's a problem with the current incarnation of ebooks as a set of cloud stores. Imagine e-books held—along with all the annotations made to them on your device—in something like a blockchain. Someone pushes you three bucks, and you push them a (license to a) book. Now the license, and the annotations, are in their account, accessible to all their devices.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#35

Post by TheGRS »

fahimulhaq wrote: post #24
TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

Just curious. What are the missing features in technical/programming ebooks in your opinion?

My experience with technical books in ebook form has been pretty lack-luster so far. I personally like to have my screen dedicated to the IDE and to have the book over on some other screen. This is so I don't lose context in what I'm working on and so I can easily work through examples without putting the text away.

Most of the time I only have the one laptop screen however, so if I'm reading an ebook on the same computer, I need to switch from IDE to some other program to read and then back. This also drives me to copy/paste examples, which for me doesn't help me learn well.

Reading a technical ebook on my kindle has its own set of problems. Examples are usually written for the paperback book (which are usually very wide), so the kindle will squish examples and put them across multiple kindle pages. I haven't tried using an ebook with a large tablet yet, so maybe that is the sweet spot.

But my last issue is something I haven't seen a good solution for yet. Often I just want to flip to a section of the book for reference and I simply don't have a good feel for how to do this with an ebook right now. Flipping on an ebook usually requires going to a chapter you know holds the content and then paging one-by-one until you find what you are looking for. Ctrl+F may or may not be useful (I usually find its not). Paper books are simply quicker for flipping through the pages while scanning the content.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#36

Post by LordKano »

derefr wrote: post #33
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a long day of working in the garden, on my car or on a home improvement project, I like to relax in a hot bath with a good book. I'm not comfortable doing that with my Kindle. I may not be the average book consumer but I buy a lot of books.

That's a problem with the device more than anything. The ultimate e-book reader form-factor (that all the device manufacturers are gunning to eventually get to, with research into flexible e-ink et al) will look like nothing more than a laminated sheet of paper, and would be pretty much just as safe to get wet.

It may well be a limitation of today's technology but it's still a real limitation. It's why reading ebooks on my laptop while I'm in the tub hasn't become my method.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#37

Post by sltkr »

derefr wrote: post #33
LordKano wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After a long day of working in the garden, on my car or on a home improvement project, I like to relax in a hot bath with a good book. I'm not comfortable doing that with my Kindle. I may not be the average book consumer but I buy a lot of books.

That's a problem with the device more than anything. The ultimate e-book reader form-factor (that all the device manufacturers are gunning to eventually get to, with research into flexible e-ink et al) will look like nothing more than a laminated sheet of paper, and would be pretty much just as safe to get wet.

FYI, Kobo already sells a waterproof e-reader today for ~$160.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#38

Post by ghaff »

dublinben wrote: post #27
ghaff wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just very old out-of-print books. There is a whole class of, for example, 10-20 year old fiction for which print copies are often readily available from Amazon sellers for the cost of shipping/handling ($3.99) or just a little more while the Kindle copy is still $9.99 or more. The thing is that I would much rather have the digital copy because I end up reading most of my books on planes or otherwise while tr…

If you're opposed to downloading these ebooks for free, you might consider getting an inexpensive used copy digitized.[0] [1] http://1dollarscan.com/

>If you're opposed to downloading these ebooks for free

I sort of am although I realize the only net difference between buying a very cheap used book and downloading a free copy is to make a bookseller some place and the USPS a few pennies each.

I can't imagine going to the trouble of ordering a used copy and getting it digitized though.

Re: E-Book Sales Slip, and Print Is Far from Dead

#40

Post by TheGRS »

LordKano wrote: post #28
TheGRS wrote: post #15

I hope this isn't the trend going forward. I don't get the traditionalist love of paperback books most of the time. Like the sort of people who go on and on about exploring book stores or the smell of new paper. I love my Kindle and I really hope to be able to use it as my primary reading source, its just so convenient, light, portable and unobtrusive (especially with that newer back-light option). But the price of n…

After a long day of working in the garden, on my car or on a home improvement project, I like to relax in a hot bath with a good book. I'm not comfortable doing that with my Kindle. I may not be the average book consumer but I buy a lot of books.

Its curious why you would feel any more comfortable with a book that would be ruined by water than with a tablet that would also be ruined by water. I actually get why, there's less at stake for your $10 book than for your $60 kindle, but its still curious. I've read my kindle in the bath numerous times :)
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