Kindle editions outsell hardcovers

viadelprat · 07-23-2010, 11:24 AM

This week Amazon announced that sales of digital books have outpaced traditional book sales by a significant margin.

I'm certainly seeing this with my own novel, "No Roads Lead to Rome," where digital sales this month are roughly 10X paper copies, and I'm curious if forum members are also moving towards e-Books.

Reading between the lines, digital editions are outselling hardcovers, paperbacks still rule ... for now

I wonder if the e-book figures are being inflated by all the free books available. I've certainly downloaded more than a few public domain editions (Mark Twain, for example) than I'll ever read -- hey, they're free!

I'm also curious what the average price/e-book is. For example, I recently bought the Edward Gibbon's six volumes of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for $0.99. Not quite an "impulse buy," but getting this masterpiece for the price of a song wasn't hard to resist.

Your thoughts?

jswinden · 07-23-2010, 12:12 PM

I'm really surprised that the publishing industry hasn't pushed us harder to go digital. With eBooks there are no production costs that are unique to printed books. No printing costs, no materials to purchase, no shipping costs, nor salaries of people involved in those productions. I'm no economist, but it just makes sense on so many levels to go digital. The profit margin for the distributors should be greater. The author should get as good a cut as with printed books. And trees don't have to die for printed books. The best thing for authors is that they can self publish and not have to deal with large publishing houses.

Having said all that, I still prefer a printed book for certain reference material or study material. It is still easier for me to underline and annotate a printed reference/study book than to use a digital book reader to do the same. Perhaps one day that will change as the digital reader technologies improve. But for the bulk of my reading it is digital all the way!

wesleyer · 07-23-2010, 12:18 PM

From what I read, free e-book downloads were excluded from this.

07-23-2010, 11:24 AM	#1
viadelprat No Roads Lead to Rome Posts: 4 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: USA Device: iPad	Kindle editions outsell hardcovers This week Amazon announced that sales of digital books have outpaced traditional book sales by a significant margin. I'm certainly seeing this with my own novel, "No Roads Lead to Rome," where digital sales this month are roughly 10X paper copies, and I'm curious if forum members are also moving towards e-Books. Reading between the lines, digital editions are outselling hardcovers, paperbacks still rule ... for now I wonder if the e-book figures are being inflated by all the free books available. I've certainly downloaded more than a few public domain editions (Mark Twain, for example) than I'll ever read -- hey, they're free! I'm also curious what the average price/e-book is. For example, I recently bought the Edward Gibbon's six volumes of "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" for $0.99. Not quite an "impulse buy," but getting this masterpiece for the price of a song wasn't hard to resist. Your thoughts?

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07-23-2010, 12:12 PM	#2
jswinden Nameless Being	I'm really surprised that the publishing industry hasn't pushed us harder to go digital. With eBooks there are no production costs that are unique to printed books. No printing costs, no materials to purchase, no shipping costs, nor salaries of people involved in those productions. I'm no economist, but it just makes sense on so many levels to go digital. The profit margin for the distributors should be greater. The author should get as good a cut as with printed books. And trees don't have to die for printed books. The best thing for authors is that they can self publish and not have to deal with large publishing houses. Having said all that, I still prefer a printed book for certain reference material or study material. It is still easier for me to underline and annotate a printed reference/study book than to use a digital book reader to do the same. Perhaps one day that will change as the digital reader technologies improve. But for the bulk of my reading it is digital all the way!

07-23-2010, 12:18 PM	#3
wesleyer Connoisseur Posts: 54 Karma: 604 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: none	From what I read, free e-book downloads were excluded from this.

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