eBook Sales Outpace Hardbacks 247
dptalia writes "Amazon announced that for every 100 hardback books they sell, 180 eBooks are sold. In addition, they've seen sales for Kindles triple since they lowered the price. But traditionalists shouldn't panic yet — paperbacks are still the king."
Re:Traditionalists shouldn't panic anyways (Score:2, Informative)
Re:love it (Score:3, Informative)
This is even true of "Coders at Work" which while not a technical book, would be fun to read. But I don't want to have it sitting on my shelf if I'm just going to read it once and probably not go back. Your choices are PDF or TOPAZ, none of which work that well on Nook. And even Kindle users complain about Topaz books not reflowing well. Of course if I had an iPad the PDF would probably be fine. So maybe for technical books iPad is the way forward... Still for reading fiction the Nook/Kindle/other eInk readers are pretty nice...
Re:love it (Score:3, Informative)
I bought a Nook from Barnes & Noble a few weeks ago ... the $150 price of the wifi version convinced me to give it a try. I have been pleasantly surprised at how nice the reading experience has been. There were times when I caught myself reaching up to turn the page, as if I was reading an actual hardcopy book. The page transition did take a little getting used to and it is a little slow at times, but those are minor issues for me.
I will still buy some hard back & paperback books, but for traveling and general reading eBooks are a perfect solution for me. I've also got iBooks on my iPhone and was pleased with that experience as well.
Re:Dollars and sense (Score:3, Informative)
Usually when a new best seller first comes out, it will only be available in hardcover, so it's a little worse than simply not supplying enough paperbacks, they don't make them available at all. Think of it as the early adopter fee, if you're willing to wait 6 months you can get the same book in paperback for much less. That annoys me but doesn't really piss me off, yes you have to pay extra for a new release but you get a superior product in the form of a more durable hardcover. What pisses me off is when they charge $10 (or some publishers even $15 now that the courts decided they can decide pricing) for a new release eBook. Now you're getting the exact same product as someone who pays $5 a few months later, and it seems like many books stay at that price point even after the paperback versions are available.
Basically, if you want to see what's wrong with the eBook industry just take a look at this [amazon.com].
Kindle price: 9.17
New Hardcover: 6.70
I shouldn't have to price shop between a purely electronic, zero marginal cost version and a hardcover version. Even assuming the problem is simply that they overestimated demand and now someone has a stock of hardcovers lying around they're trying to get rid of, the Kindle price should be adjusted to at most the lowest available hard cover price.
Re:Who buys hardbacks? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the answer to the library question is simple. Most libraries, especially university ones, buy special library versions of the books. They typically come in hardback, printed with special ink on acid-free paper. The upside is that the book will last, supposedly, much longer, possibly a couple centuries. With no acid in the book you also won't get that nasty breakdown you do with older books that turns the pages brittle and the covers all '60s techni-color. The downside is that this edition of the book costs around $100+ for something as simple as Dean Koontz's new thriller.
Otherwise, libraries typically buy the best quality edition of the book they can and rebind it in hardback. But there is a huge market for publishers making special library editions that aren't available to the public.
Re:love it (Score:5, Informative)
ePub is becoming a standard and it does have a standard Adobe DRM (which the nook can read). But everyone seems to be inventing their own DRM. Nook can read the standard DRM and Barnes and Noble's DRM. I don't know why it felt compelled to invent its own DRM.
Anyway Amazon's DRM has been cracked, and there are utilities to convert from Mobi Pocket to ePub and the other way. Most of the formats are basically similar to HTML. However Topaz is different, it is a scanned image. The books are lower quality, but basically you just scan it and are done. For ePub/Mobi you actually have to publish your book in that format which is more work for the publisher. For publishers who don't want to bother at all with eBooks, they can just scan it into Topaz and sell a few extra ebooks. For the ones who are serious about eBooks, they often put it in the format and then publish both Mobi (Amazon's format) and ePub(most of the rest) with each store locking it into the various DRM. Sometimes I see the same book on Amazon, Fictionwise, Barnes and Noble.
But still it would be good if they all agreed on one format. But it seems like with the seamless utilities, if a publisher goes to ePub or Mobi they can convert to the other format and then each store just throws its own DRM. For a consumer it sucks because you are locked in. At least with Nook you can read adobe DRM so you have some choice. But in reality most of the DRM schemes have been cracked so even Kindle users can crack the DRM and convert to Mobi.
Re:You cant hand an ebook to your friend... (Score:3, Informative)
B&N does this (lending) on the Nook right now. The LendMe feature has been well received in the community (though I haven't used it yet) judging from the Nook message board on B&N. You lend it for 14 days, it disappears from your account and appears in your friend's account and reverts after the 14 day period. Not ideal but a good start. Of course, DRM-free is what's called for.
Re:'tis a sad day (Score:1, Informative)
You can disable the remote access on your Kindle; you don't even have to use tin foil. You can also use it entirely on an un-networked pc, although you'll find that putting the PC on the network will give you access to a number of resources, such as ebook stores.