MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

mr ploppy · 05-12-2010, 10:33 AM

I think the days when a free ebook would drive paperback sales are gone now. That was when people were reading them on a CRT monitor, where they would read the first few pages, take some headache pills and go for the paperback. Now we have dedicated devices to read them on.

I have bought paperbacks of books I have downloaded, but those are the exception. Free ebooks now are more likely to drive future sales of ebooks or back catalogue ebooks than anything else. But if your back catalogue isn't available, people will just turn to pirate sites instead or at best buy second hand paperbacks and make their own (and possibly also share them).

I don't seem to be typical of this site, because I still prefer paperbacks to ebooks. I buy them when they are cheap, as an alternative to finding a used paperback on Ebay, but would be more likely to download them for free (authorised or otherwise) unless it was a writer I was already familiar with. In which case I would be more likely to buy the paperback (or very rarely a hardback).

05-12-2010, 10:33 AM	#36
mr ploppy Feral Underclass Posts: 3,622 Karma: 26821535 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Yorkshire, tha noz Device: 2nd hand paperback	I think the days when a free ebook would drive paperback sales are gone now. That was when people were reading them on a CRT monitor, where they would read the first few pages, take some headache pills and go for the paperback. Now we have dedicated devices to read them on. I have bought paperbacks of books I have downloaded, but those are the exception. Free ebooks now are more likely to drive future sales of ebooks or back catalogue ebooks than anything else. But if your back catalogue isn't available, people will just turn to pirate sites instead or at best buy second hand paperbacks and make their own (and possibly also share them). I don't seem to be typical of this site, because I still prefer paperbacks to ebooks. I buy them when they are cheap, as an alternative to finding a used paperback on Ebay, but would be more likely to download them for free (authorised or otherwise) unless it was a writer I was already familiar with. In which case I would be more likely to buy the paperback (or very rarely a hardback).