Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales In UK

twoheadedboy writes "Book lovers are increasingly turning to e-books, and in the UK Amazon has announced it now sells more e-books than physical copies on Amazon.co.uk. Kindle books surpassed sales of hardbacks in the UK back in May 2011 at a rate of two to one and now they have leapfrogged the combined totals of both hardbacks and paperbacks."

Can we get our rights back, please?

[wild_quinine]

Another vindication for technological progress, and another steely blow to the right of first sale.

It has become my preferred method of reading

[Shivetya]

having a Kindle touch, Kindle Fire, and even an iPad 2, I find myself reading almost all new books on the Kindle Touch. For two reasons, its so damn light and second because I can use it in full sun light.

For me nothing beats being able to read outside without having to worry about glare and portability. While I am still a fan of hard cover books, having shelves of them, I am more than happy to own an e-reader version of them. Too bad publishers don't help the trend and follow a similar model DVD publishers do, where you can get a digital version without your hard copy.

"Amazon sales" not "UK sales"

[1u3hr]

"Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales In UK"

Bullshit. The actual story is Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales ON AMAZON In UK.

Huge difference.

Re:kindle...?

[Lumpy]

There are only two devices that are useful for reading pdf's.

Kindle DX, and iPad. you really need the big screen.

Re:But how many books are actually read?

[nospam007]

"Sure, more e-books are bought, but how many of those are read?"

You mean people put them on imaginary shelves so that it looks pretty?

Reading is sort of the point with e-books, their value as status symbols is nil, you can't impress people like with leather bound volumes, bought by the yard to decorate your condo.
You can't use them as paper weights nor use them to flatten dried flowers, you can't use them as door stoppers, you can't level old tables with them, you can't hide cash in them nor hollow them out to hide your stash.

I pasted a link below with other stuff you can't do with ebooks.

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/27/cool-non-literary-uses-for-books/ [neatorama.com]

It's still a bad deal

[davide marney]

You buy two books from Amazon, one physical and the other for the Kindle. After you finish reading them, you want to pass it around your family and friends. To share the physical copy, you just ... hand it to someone. To share the Kindle copy, you must give Amazon that person's email address. They are then allowed to read it for two weeks. And you can only share it once.

Given the fact that Kindle books often cost the same or more than physical books, these restrictions make the Kindle versions a very bad deal for the consumer. Worse, in my opinion, than DRM on music, because you have to give up the email address of the person you are sharing your purchase with. Name me one other merchant who requires that you personally identify the person you share a purchase with. I'm not sure that's even legal, but even if it is, it's a horrible precedent.

Re:First edition

[BlackCreek]

> This may not be an issue for the big names in publishing but it will be the end of many small specialist publishers if they go all digital. These small publishers may actually be better off staying analog since printed books are a pretty good anti piracy defense plus those customers that are really interested in this specialist literature will still buy the paper books.

I read many things that go under 'specialist literature'. Trouble is, there is so much (good) stuff to read that I one of the ways I select what to read is "is it available as an e-book?". If a writer/publisher can't be bothered to sell their content in the way I want to consume it, I'll just shop elsewhere.

Really, books don't make a profit by selling only to those who absolutely ****must**** get it (perhaps with honorable exceptions).

Re:"Amazon sales" not "UK sales"

[1u3hr]

Amazon is thought to have approximately 20% share in total book sales in 2011, so it may still be fairly indicative of the market as a whole.

Since no one else sells Kindle books, that means 10% of all "book" sales are Kindle. Not over 50%. Ignoring other ebook formats, of course, but so did TFA.

Obviously number of ebooks has gone up, but they don't "surpass print sales in the UK" without a lot of qualifications added to that statement.

Re:"Amazon sales" not "UK sales"

[Shrike82]

Amazon is thought to have approximately 20% share in total book sales in 2011, so it may still be fairly indicative of the market as a whole.

Except brick-and-mortar stores don't really offer e-books, and Amazon is a skewed sample as they're pretty much the champion of digital book purveyance. So no, not fairly indicative at all I'd say.

Re:First edition

[CastrTroy]

Yeah, but you only have to scan it once. Then release it on the internet. Maybe it won't end well for small time publishers, but the authors they publish could see a boost in the popularity of their work. I've read way more books on my eReader in the past year, than I read in the previous 5 years before I owned it. And every book I've read on my eReader was not pirated (many were free however). As Cory Doctorow says, the problems for most authors isn't piracy, it's obscurity. Getting people to read your work is the hardest part. Once the author has you reading his books, it's that much easier to get you to pay for one.

Re:First edition

[somersault]

publishing only ebooks will lead to massive piracy

Why any more piracy than will already exist with current levels of ebook distribution? I'm not really convinced by what you're saying.

There are clearly plenty of people like me who buy ebooks, and apparently even more than buy paper books now, at least among online savvy shoppers. Yes, there will always be freeloaders, but not everyone is that selfish.