Amazon Now Selling More Kindle Books Than All Print Books

[Penforhire]

I wonder if average price is driving it, more downloads of inexpensive e-books? If I read the link correctly they are talking about unit sales, not dollars.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

I wonder if average price is driving it, more downloads of inexpensive e-books? If I read the link correctly they are talking about unit sales, not dollars.

That dosn't matter. After all if the buyer think the cheaper books are worth the money...

Tonight I'm going to buy The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. I have in a leather bound P-book, now I'll buy it in a $.99 cent e-book...

Still a sale...

[TotallyEpic]

Now hopefully they'll start dropping the price of ebooks below the paperback price.

[carld]

Sadly I'm guessing not. If anything this will scare the traditional publishers into raising ebook prices.

[crich70]

You also don't have to worry about losing your place by having a bookmark fall out and of course the pages are stain proof in that with a paper book if you spill something on it the stain is there for good but short of total immersion in water or like liquid I would imagine that a liquid that was spilled on a Kindle could just be wiped away without permanent damage being done.

Originally Posted by RainingLemur

Buy pbook, wait for a week for shipping, then read book... Or, buy ebook, wait a minute to download, then read book.

Given the choice, I'd happily take the ebook route. It's more convenient, and most of the time looks nicer.

[J. Strnad]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

Tonight I'm going to buy The Incredible Shrinking Man by Richard Matheson. I have in a leather bound P-book, now I'll buy it in a $.99 cent e-book...

Thanks for the heads-up on this one! I have a tatty old paperback of this book in the attic somewhere. It'll be great to have a copy I can actually get to and re-read!

[Three minutes later...]

So now I've added the anthology Spinetinglers 2008, another $.99 book. Which means that, in about five minutes, I've bought two ebooks from Amazon.

I simply would not have done this with expensive print books.

[Sil_liS]

Originally Posted by crich70

You also don't have to worry about losing your place by having a bookmark fall out and of course the pages are stain proof in that with a paper book if you spill something on it the stain is there for good but short of total immersion in water or like liquid I would imagine that a liquid that was spilled on a Kindle could just be wiped away without permanent damage being done.

A bookmark doesn't just fall out of the book; if you spill something on a book, you just stain a page, and the rest of the book is still perfectly fine. On the other hand if a reader falls down or if you spill liquid on it and it gets inside, it will probably be damaged.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by carld

Sadly I'm guessing not. If anything this will scare the traditional publishers into raising ebook prices.

I don't think it will scare them into raising prices, but I think they will feel it justifies their current pricing.

[carld]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

A bookmark doesn't just fall out of the book; if you spill something on a book, you just stain a page, and the rest of the book is still perfectly fine. On the other hand if a reader falls down or if you spill liquid on it and it gets inside, it will probably be damaged.

I've never spilled something on a book and ruined just a page. The books is almost always a mess.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

A bookmark doesn't just fall out of the book; if you spill something on a book, you just stain a page, and the rest of the book is still perfectly fine. On the other hand if a reader falls down or if you spill liquid on it and it gets inside, it will probably be damaged.

My wife and I read in the bathtub all the time.
It is no problem.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

A bookmark doesn't just fall out of the book; if you spill something on a book, you just stain a page, and the rest of the book is still perfectly fine. On the other hand if a reader falls down or if you spill liquid on it and it gets inside, it will probably be damaged.

Yes but the most likely way for the liquid to get inside is by the unit being immersed rather than a few drops of liquid being spilled on it. I'm sure Amazon designed the Kindle for example to not let liquid in easily. And if you only stain a single page then the paper must be very absorbent. Most paper books have liquid quickly saturate their pages so multiple pages are involved.

[Sil_liS]

@Phogg
I stand corrected, that is something that can't be done with a paper book. How much does one of these bags cost? I went to the beach on a windy day with a p-book and got sand between every page that I read and I am concerned about what would happen if sand might get under the buttons of the reader.

@carld & crich70
In my experience, the paper isn't very absorbent at all, and the most of the water can be removed with a paper towel before it does much damage. At most I get a page that is slightly wrinkly where the drops fell. I should add that I don't drink coffee, just tea, so I'm not in any danger of leaving dark stains on the paper.

[b0ned0me]

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

@Phogg
I stand corrected, that is something that can't be done with a paper book. How much does one of these bags cost? I went to the beach on a windy day with a p-book and got sand between every page that I read and I am concerned about what would happen if sand might get under the buttons of the reader.

Unless you are planning on going whitewater rafting or something, a ziplock-type freezer baggie will do the job well enough and avoids all those awkward bits of hard plastic. $2.99 for a 50-pack.