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jbcohen · 04-06-2012, 08:05 AM

This is simply my opinion and should be taken as such:

I would like to say that in my humble oppion we need to be careful who we quote when we talk about demographics of electronic books. Is a source creditable? Are they in a position to know what the demographics are? Here is an example of what I am talking about: the most creditable would people like Harper-Collins and Penguin books, people that are doing the actual publication of the books and its a simple matter for them to count the books as they go out the door or the files as the server sends them out.

A second level of creditbility would be someone like Amazon or Barns and Nobels, they are middle men who sometimes count what they sell (Amazon is not always a middle man quite frequently they are the publisher).

A third level of creditablility would be companies that are quite used to researching the subject and finding out who is buying what out there as well as associations of book publishers such as publishers.org which is a trade association of book publishers. Some of the research firms that do the research all of the time include people like CBS and Pew Research. These folks do this sort of research all of the time and have the research down to a science.

A fourth level of credibility are news reporters that use the third level as their source and re-word and print their findings in their pages for example CBS, NBC, ABC, New York Times and Washingtion Post. This also may include industry magazines such as Information Week, Network World, PC Magazine, PC World or Byte which run magazines that talk about IT matters.

People that are not sources for this sort of thing include us at Mobile Read, unless you work for a company mentioned above. Otherwise we are simply the customers. Another non-creditable source would include bloggers, which are simply people that have an oppinion, and if you get 12 people together in a room how many oppinions do you get? Answer 144.

04-06-2012, 08:05 AM	#1
jbcohen Wizard Posts: 3,025 Karma: 11196738 Join Date: Oct 2010 Location: Piper College Device: Samsung A21	My Turn This is simply my opinion and should be taken as such: I would like to say that in my humble oppion we need to be careful who we quote when we talk about demographics of electronic books. Is a source creditable? Are they in a position to know what the demographics are? Here is an example of what I am talking about: the most creditable would people like Harper-Collins and Penguin books, people that are doing the actual publication of the books and its a simple matter for them to count the books as they go out the door or the files as the server sends them out. A second level of creditbility would be someone like Amazon or Barns and Nobels, they are middle men who sometimes count what they sell (Amazon is not always a middle man quite frequently they are the publisher). A third level of creditablility would be companies that are quite used to researching the subject and finding out who is buying what out there as well as associations of book publishers such as publishers.org which is a trade association of book publishers. Some of the research firms that do the research all of the time include people like CBS and Pew Research. These folks do this sort of research all of the time and have the research down to a science. A fourth level of credibility are news reporters that use the third level as their source and re-word and print their findings in their pages for example CBS, NBC, ABC, New York Times and Washingtion Post. This also may include industry magazines such as Information Week, Network World, PC Magazine, PC World or Byte which run magazines that talk about IT matters. People that are not sources for this sort of thing include us at Mobile Read, unless you work for a company mentioned above. Otherwise we are simply the customers. Another non-creditable source would include bloggers, which are simply people that have an oppinion, and if you get 12 people together in a room how many oppinions do you get? Answer 144.