Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 190 posts

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

#111

Post by 36erhefg »

magic_beans wrote: post #39

When I'm 85 I'll still be able to open a book I bought in 2012 and read it. Text on paper ain't never changing file format.

You make an excellent point. With the prevalence of DRM and ownership, someday you might not be able to read your book, either due to old unsupported device or a format, or even the company going bankrupt. Even if neither of this happens, at some point the standards will change. If you don't use the "cloud" and risk the lockout, you will probably need to backup you information. The hardware changes, physical books don't. This is a worry for some.

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

#112

Post by epochwolf »

superuser2 wrote: post #83
blumkvist wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except... it has no pages.

Turning physical pages for me is at best neutral. I like to use a stand that holds the book upright-ish on my desk, which makes page-turning inconvenient. I do wish they had kept the physical page-turning buttons though, not a fan of the touchscreen.

The Kindle Voyage brought the buttons back.

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

#113

Post by legomylibro »

ilamont wrote: post #60

Small publisher here. I believe Ebook sales have been generally flat or declining for many titles for the following reasons: * Pricing issues * Huge influx of new/republished titles entering ebook distribution channels are outpacing demand, including many free or low-cost self-published titles * Kindle Fire sales negatively impacting ebook reading habits encourages people to do other things besides read (video, apps,…

There are sites that help with finding titles in the noise of self-pub books and general schlack, like Goodreads, LibraryThing, even Amazon will suggest titles similar to ones you've bought.

I think the pricing issue is the big one. Publishers are extremely entrenched, and not willing to have parity between ebook and print pricing. I'm not sure why; you'd think the margins would be higher and used sales wouldn't be an issue.

But at the same time, I kind of understand the higher price if you look at what ebooks are worth compared to print books. You can't lose them, and they have way more features. I've almost given up on print books because I can't highlight words to look them up, sync notes to the cloud, etc etc. Lately I've found myself going to used bookstores, buying interesting titles because I like supporting them and having the books lying around, and then buying digital editions separately because the experience is so much better. People may complain about DRM, but I've never had an issue stripping it with Calibre and I don't really have a problem sharing an ebook when I'm done. Maybe that's wrong, but I'm treating it like a normal book and I don't feel bad, especially considering how much I pay.

Seriously, it's just too much. Paperbacks usually run me $4-5 from a used bookstore, but ebooks? I feel like I'm being punished for liking them. Throw me a bone, publishers - you don't get a cut when I pick the cheaper option! When I have to pay $15 for a text file I am reallllly tempted to just say 'fuck it' and pirate it.

Also, libraries - I get a good number of audiobooks and ebooks through OverDrive and my public library now. That's not a sale, and it's easy to do right from my phone.

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

#114

Post by facepalm »

ghaff wrote: post #104
facepalm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to worry about the dad thing (well handing books to my son, to be more precise). However - I don't read that many books from my own dad, so maybe my son won't be bothered that much. Also, many books will be in the public domain by the time he might want to read them. Or there will be subscription models where he can just read them for free. Or, I would just have to buy it for him a second time, again, realisti…

I'm definitely sympathetic to the DRM and dad thing. And, in many ways, it applies more broadly to digital assets (whether DRMd or not) vs. physical ones. OTOH, I've spent way too much effort throughout my life lugging stuff around and I'm currently trying to, however slowly, systematically digitizing things I care about that are amenable to it.

What I would like, in terms of the dad thing, is a nice UI to my library so that my kids have a chance to browse and discover good books in my collection.

I don't think there is a solution for that yet. Maybe it would also be the future of book shops (same problem of serendipity).

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

#115

Post by ghaff »

petra wrote: post #101
ghaff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Amazon has been pushing the "Kindle Unlimited" subscription model and changed how authors get paid for those consumers, which favors shorter stories. A couple of points. People seem to be shifting in general, George R. R. Martin novels notwithstanding, to favoring shorter content. My specific experience is more in the marketing literature and research reports space but there we've seen a clear shift toward shorter a…

>> My specific experience is more in the marketing literature ... there we've seen a clear shift toward shorter and more visual content being preferred. Could you please give some example of such books?

By "literature" I was referring to marketing materials that I'm involved in creating or having created. I don't have specific public metrics that I can point to, but I work with a lot of people both inside and outside my company who track downloads, pageviews, etc. of a lot of different asset types. (As well as just talking to customers and others who use the materials.)

What we see, for example, is survey results that get delivered essentially as a presentation rather than as a report with a lot of text. There also seems to be a general preference for shorter written pieces with more sidebars, graphics, etc.

In terms of technical books, as I mentioned separately, just look at O'Reilly's catalog. There are still some big tomes but also a lot of much shorter books.

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

#116

Post by harshreality »

derefr wrote: post #34
Nav_Panel wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 l…

The ebooks I buy are immediately stripped of drm and dumped into calibre. It's not the prettiest software in the world, but it works and the ebooks are mine forever no matter what happens to amazon, google, apple, or kobo, and they're trivially transferable. I will not buy ebooks from a store that uses DRM that's not immediately removable.

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

#117

Post by tsotha »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #86
akgoel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not surprising, but I'm not sure I agree with they psychology that ebooks should be cheaper. Pricing for books is not just a markup over marginal cost. I have this discussion every day in our office - our price is not based on our cost, our price is based on what our customer is willing to pay. If the price of ebooks has gone up, the publishers are trying to find a balance of maximizing revenues and profit…

Presumably because if you don't, other publishers might, and they will get your customers. For some weird reason, no publisher decided to do that. Except pirates, but they always do that.

Publishers may be okay at the moment, but I still think they're doomed. There's literally no barrier to entry in the publishing business, which is eventually going to break their pricing cartel.

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

#118

Post by [deleted] »

harshreality wrote: post #116
derefr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 l…

The ebooks I buy are immediately stripped of drm and dumped into calibre. It's not the prettiest software in the world, but it works and the ebooks are mine forever no matter what happens to amazon, google, apple, or kobo, and they're trivially transferable. I will not buy ebooks from a store that uses DRM that's not immediately removable.

[deleted]

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

#119

Post by WalterBright »

I actually prefer to read scanned paperbacks on my ereader rather than the ebook versions. With my Samsung tablet they are the same size as a paperback, and the display looks like a paperback page. I like the typography, layout, and general imperfections of a scanned page. The letters are all slightly different, and are imperfectly placed. Ebooks are a bit too perfect and sterile.

I'd like to take it a step further and have the background be a scanned blank page, again so it looks a bit imperfect like paper does.

I buy the paperbacks, scan them (takes 5-10 minutes), then throw the book into the recycle bin.

Post reply on HN