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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

#171

Post by JupiterMoon »

36erhefg wrote: post #132
Turing_Machine wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EPUB is HTML, and that's not going anywhere, either.

Op is talking about time-spans longer than we've had the internet. Don't flatter yourself by thinking you can predict the future. ( Ironically, neither Firefox nor Opera opened a .epub file out-of-the-box. So much for compatibility. )

True but html has the advantage of being a text based markup. The chances are that a text editor in 2050 will open an epub are fairly high. I don't know what the odds of being able to view a 2015 .mobi file at all in 2050 is.

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

#172

Post by artumi-richard »

One thing I've noticed since using an e-reader that I've not heard anyone else mention, is that I've become far less happy with the quality of print and the quality of the paper in the physical books I'm buying. I once read a book [1] that had unusually high quality paper which made it noticeably denser and the pages had more flex in them, which made one handed reading a doddle. It wasn't flawless, as the print would smudge if I rubbed my slightly moist fingers against it.

Still, every time I go to a book now I'm usually thinking "the type is too large" or "that font is awful" or "the paper is too thick".

I think it's time the industry had another look at how paperbacks in particular should look and feel, given the influence of the e-reader.

1: http://www.amazon.com/Unreliable-Sources-20th-Century-Report...

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

#173

Post by Booktrope »

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…

Good point. It's a piece about traditional publishers (especially the big 5) not book sales in general. Also buried in the article is head of Kindle ops saying, Amazon's ebook sales are continuing to increase. It's not only possible that ebook sales are going up, there's very strong evidence of this. Check out the authorearnings.com site if you want to see just how fast the ebook market is moving away from traditional publishers to self-publishing and alternative approaches.

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

#174

Post by douche »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #168
pasbesoin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, human beings depend strongly upon spatial orientation. Printed materials dovetail with this. Many recount being able to recall information in part based upon its location within a printed text. IIRC, there was... I think it was a lengthy New Yorker piece, a number of years ago, that went into this. Including the "messy" professor's/researcher's office, until one has a conversation there with them and ob…

For many words, I actually remember the location on the page, and the page's location in the book, and the book, where I first learned it! [I usually don't remember the exact page number, but some sort of general sense of the position in the book.] With a kindle book, I've found this effect to be much weaker, and for unpaged ebooks (e.g. many free books in html form), it's almost non-existant. It's important to me, a…

I do the exact same thing. Glad I'm not the only one with a strongly visual memory that works that way.

Incidentally, this may be one advantage of PDFs over other formats. Responsiveness be damned, deterministic paging is also an important book property.

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

#175

Post by douche »

jay_kyburz wrote: post #146
douche wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Prices like this will likely drive me, and others, to piracy. Especially since ebooks are small enough that you can download them in seconds. I love getting juiced for out-of-print books, especially ones that are in that gray area where the author and his direct descendants are dead and buried, but copyright lives on.

Whats happening is that people are publishing large bundles of e-books in a single torrent. Or like music, every book from a particular author. I think fiction published need to look at what is happening in Free to Play games and Kickstarter if they want the industry to survive. Oh oh.. thats my Startup idea. Nobody steal it. Kickstarter for fiction. You go and read the first chapter and pay to get the rest of the bo…

Leanpub also does this.

I keep looking at GitBook as well, although I don't see much on there I'm interested in reading.

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

#176

Post by douche »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #156
tsotha wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a reader without unlimited time the publishing industry acts as a barrier to entry which filters out the worst books... We need a robust reviewing system which filters out shill reviews.

Goodreads? And some critical reading skills to pick out the shills?

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

#177

Post by JupiterMoon »

douche wrote: post #176
JupiterMoon wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a reader without unlimited time the publishing industry acts as a barrier to entry which filters out the worst books... We need a robust reviewing system which filters out shill reviews.

Goodreads? And some critical reading skills to pick out the shills?

Why should I waste time on this? I know that books in the SciFi section of my local bookshop will have a certain minimum standard without needing to wade through some reviews.

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

#178

Post by LordKano »

TheGRS wrote: post #40
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.

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 :)

I have Java book that was exposed to a leaking bottle of Apple juice. Most of the pages were soaked and as soon as they dried, it was still a perfectly readable book. I do not believe that my Kindle would have fared so well.

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

#179

Post by Turing_Machine »

36erhefg wrote: post #132
Turing_Machine wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EPUB is HTML, and that's not going anywhere, either.

Op is talking about time-spans longer than we've had the internet. Don't flatter yourself by thinking you can predict the future. ( Ironically, neither Firefox nor Opera opened a .epub file out-of-the-box. So much for compatibility. )

HTML still isn't going anywhere. Not with trillions of pages, it isn't.

We can still read cuneiform writing, and that's been around considerably longer.

"Ironically, neither Firefox nor Opera opened a .epub file out-of-the-box. So much for compatibility. "

An EPUB is a collection of ZIPed HTML files. Change the extension to .ZIP, unzip, open.

ZIP isn't going anywhere, either.

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

#180

Post by 36erhefg »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #179
36erhefg wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Op is talking about time-spans longer than we've had the internet. Don't flatter yourself by thinking you can predict the future. ( Ironically, neither Firefox nor Opera opened a .epub file out-of-the-box. So much for compatibility. )

HTML still isn't going anywhere. Not with trillions of pages, it isn't. We can still read cuneiform writing, and that's been around considerably longer. "Ironically, neither Firefox nor Opera opened a .epub file out-of-the-box. So much for compatibility. " An EPUB is a collection of ZIPed HTML files. Change the extension to .ZIP, unzip, open. ZIP isn't going anywhere, either.

You are taking a strawman position. Take a look at the bigger picture, my other comment, and reevaluate.
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