Surprise Ending for Publishers: In 2020, Business Was Good (nytimes.com) 25
Like everybody else, book publishers will be happy to see the end of 2020. But for many of them, the year has brought some positive news, which has been as welcome as it was surprising: Business has been good. From a report: With so many people stuck at home and activities from concerts to movies off limits, people have been reading a lot -- or at least buying a lot of books. Print sales by units are up almost 8 percent so far this year, according to NPD BookScan. E-books and audiobooks, which make up a smaller portion of the market, are up as well. "I expect that at the end of the year, when you look at the final numbers," Madeline McIntosh, chief executive of Penguin Random House U.S., said of the industry, "it will have been the best year in a very long time." When the United States slammed shut in March, book sales dropped sharply, but the dip didn't last. While some parts of the industry have continued to struggle, like bookstores and educational publishers, publishing executives say that demand came rushing back around June.
Many of these sales went to Amazon, but big-box stores, especially Target, also did well. As essential businesses that sold things like groceries, they were allowed to stay open through the lockdowns. Dennis Abboud, chief executive of ReaderLink, a book distributor to major chains like Walmart, Target and Costco, said his company's online sales nearly quadrupled over last year. "It was really a tale of two cities," Mr. Abboud said. "The beginning of the year was mega soft, and the end of the year was mega strong." Even though the number of people commuting has plummeted this year, audiobook revenue is up more than 17 percent over the same period in 2019, according to the Association of American Publishers, and e-book sales, which had been declining for the past several years, are up more than 16 percent.
Many of these sales went to Amazon, but big-box stores, especially Target, also did well. As essential businesses that sold things like groceries, they were allowed to stay open through the lockdowns. Dennis Abboud, chief executive of ReaderLink, a book distributor to major chains like Walmart, Target and Costco, said his company's online sales nearly quadrupled over last year. "It was really a tale of two cities," Mr. Abboud said. "The beginning of the year was mega soft, and the end of the year was mega strong." Even though the number of people commuting has plummeted this year, audiobook revenue is up more than 17 percent over the same period in 2019, according to the Association of American Publishers, and e-book sales, which had been declining for the past several years, are up more than 16 percent.
Fuck I'm old.. (Score:1)
.. and I haven't purchased tattooed dead trees since the late 90s.
Are you telling me people still drive to a brick and mortar, ask salesdroids for navigation information, navigate to pay for their chattel, to own something they can't utilize if it's not in their possession that they will be responsable for housing, dusting or moving until it eventually returns to the earth of which is was created from?
Do people have a fucked up relationship with what ''ownership'' means or am I just fucking lazy?
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Are you telling me people still drive to a brick and mortar, ask salesdroids for navigation information ...
Of course not. We buy our dead-tree books from Amazon.
The book sales at Target, Walmart, and Costco were impulse purchases, bought while people were there for other things, like groceries.
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Ever heard of a library? Or is it my problem that I read more books than I can afford to buy? (Nearly 200 this year, but down from 2019.)
Actually, to a degree I do think it my problem that I can't get used to reading large things on screen. Some kind of tactile thing, but I definitely find it much harder to stick to the end with an ebook. Overall I probably do read nearly as much stuff online as off, but the online stuff is smaller and definitely more heavily illustrated.
Isn't it about time for Slashdot to
Re:Fuck I'm old.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Do people have a fucked up relationship with what ''ownership'' means or am I just fucking lazy?
Yes, some do, thinking if they "purchase" a book made of electrons that it will always be theirs. That they're tied into a proprietary configuration by some faceless, nebulous corporation who could, if they so choose, decide you don't "own" said electrons and remove them from you even after you paid for them.
Whereas, if one purchases a tattooed dead tree, said book is theirs in perpetuity. Nameless corporations have no ability to remove those dead trees from your possession, cannot alter those dead trees in your possession, and have no claim to those dead trees once you purchase them.
In addition, going to a brick and mortar store allows one to get out of the house and breathe fresh air instead of living in their parent's basement. Searching for books at a store also satisfies the ancient hunter gatherer aspect of life. The hunt is on for that new book which titillates ones fancy, to hold that possession in their own hands, the smell of pages unsullied by others. Or, if one chooses, to spend a Saturday morning driving about from home to home searching through piles of dead trees other people accumulated but no longer wish to keep. Who knows what treasures await.
If you want to sit on your fat ass all day and stare at a screen, have it. Others like to enjoy life and get out to the world, to see what's out there, to have the thrill of the hunt.
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Do people have a fucked up relationship with what ''ownership'' means or am I just fucking lazy?
Yes, some do, thinking if they "purchase" a book made of electrons that it will always be theirs. That they're tied into a proprietary configuration by some faceless, nebulous corporation who could, if they so choose, decide you don't "own" said electrons and remove them from you even after you paid for them.
Whereas, if one purchases a tattooed dead tree, said book is theirs in perpetuity. Nameless corporations have no ability to remove those dead trees from your possession, cannot alter those dead trees in your possession, and have no claim to those dead trees once you purchase them.
In addition, going to a brick and mortar store allows one to get out of the house and breathe fresh air instead of living in their parent's basement. Searching for books at a store also satisfies the ancient hunter gatherer aspect of life. The hunt is on for that new book which titillates ones fancy, to hold that possession in their own hands, the smell of pages unsullied by others. Or, if one chooses, to spend a Saturday morning driving about from home to home searching through piles of dead trees other people accumulated but no longer wish to keep. Who knows what treasures await.
If you want to sit on your fat ass all day and stare at a screen, have it. Others like to enjoy life and get out to the world, to see what's out there, to have the thrill of the hunt.
I still read plenty of dead tree books (and really, prefer them for long form books). That said, this still sounds a lot like the preening that people used to do when claiming they didn't watch TV. ;)
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Oddly enough, I don't watch tv. I gave it up years ago. Couldn't justify the rising cost for the few stations I watched with any regularity. Other than science, sports and international news, can't say I've missed it.
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People still like to use their senses. Touch (the book and pages), smell (the book and pages), sight (beyond the screen, the shops, the outdoors, the different fonts in different books), hearing (turning a page, driving there, library/shop ambience). If you want to optimize for content consumption, yes that's efficient but you're missing out. Enjoy the journey too, and as another poster said, don't forget to live.
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''Enjoy the journey too, and as another poster said, don't forget to live.''
It's more of a personal choice thing for me. I believe that the use of the resources necessitated to obtain a written book, [as well as the resources used to maintain written word in a physical book] an excessive waste that I can use in a more enjoyable and efficient manner. The assumption that one who prefers a digital format is somehow locked behind a display with limited exposure to the world that surrounds them is just that, an
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I made the assumption because of the tone of your previous message, being surprised that people still prefer the non-digital counterparts, as the digital ones seem to be more "efficient" overall. I can definitely understand personal choice, as I also prefer reading e-books 90% of the time! But I quite like the dead tree version of books for RPG games for example, with consistently nice paper, large form factor, good typesetting and general mix of images, tables and text, all of which is hard to reproduce on
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".. and I haven't purchased tattooed dead trees since the late 90s."
Ditto here, when I git rid of my books I amassed for 50 years (some 6500 books), I gained a full room and a half in my house.
I too read much more the last year than usual and all the books came sterile through the air to my kindle.
Nobody had licked their thumb to turn some pages like with the disgusting wooden ones and I had not to have contact with anybody.
It's a win-win.
Re:Fuck I'm old.. (Score:4, Interesting)
I usually read ebooks now, but when something really strikes me as a "keeper" (i.e. I will want to revisit it multiple times over the rest of my life) I will purchase a hard copy to keep on the shelf. It's a small library of physical books that grows extremely slowly, while my ebook library rows extremely quickly.
I will say it's probably been a decade since I've been in any brick & mortar book shop except for the little used shop that's right next to the vets. I'll sometimes pop in there while waiting on a prescription to see if they have any treasures.
To me, ebooks are great for convenience. Real books are great for the experience and long-term accessibility regardless of where technology goes in the future. Both have a reason to exist.
That's a surprise? (Score:3)
A surprise is something unexpected. A lot of old people were stuck home and they still buy dead trees.
You know what else went way up this year? RVs and service. People didn't want to and/or couldn't stay in hotel rooms, and people who had them already wanted to go somewhere else. Is that supposed to be a surprise, too?
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yeah I saw that one RV go way up
I hope TFA is not suggesting... (Score:2)
[W]ere allowed to stay open through the lockdowns (Score:2)
WERE ALLOWED TO.