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Originally Posted by Andrew H.
I think those are crazy numbers.
Amazon has 15% of the US book market and the e-reader with the largest market share; their numbers are *not* generalizable to the entire market.
Although not a perfect match, I think that that the recent history of digital music is instructive, and it suggests that we should be cautions in extrapolating. After 10 years of impressive growth, mp3s still haven't passed CDs in popularity. And digital music has (at least) three important structural advantages over e-books.
1. For all recorded music, you need some sort of player, of the CD, turntable, or walkman variety...
Books, on the other hand, have not historically required a reader - if you bought the book, that was all you needed. Convincing people that they should pay $100+ just to be able to read books that can be read without a reader is a hard sell for many people.
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2. One of the great advantage that mp3 players have is that there is an extremely simple and quick method of putting your existing CDs on your player. Buying an mp3 player doesn't mean that you have to spend thousands of dollars rebuying hundreds of CDs - in a weekend, you can convert your existing music library to mp3 format. There's nothing equivalent for e-books...
3. There is, for most people, a lot more utility in having 3,000 songs with you wherever you are than in having 3,000 books with you at all times....
So my prediction would be that e-book growth will plateau at 20-30%, and grow much more slowly after that.
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Agreed on all points. Good post. Most people that I know that aren't READERS, per se, read more like a book every month or two, or just Stephen King books, or whatever.
And keep in mind the demographics of those people that DO read:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20381678/ns/us_news-life/
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One in four adults read no books at all in the past year, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released Tuesday. Of those who did read, women and older people were most avid, and religious works and popular fiction were the top choices...
The survey reveals a nation whose book readers, on the whole, can hardly be called ravenous. The typical person claimed to have read four books in the last year — half read more and half read fewer. Excluding those who hadn’t read any, the usual number read was seven....
Among those who said they had read books, the median figure — with half reading more, half fewer — was nine books for women and five for men. The figures also indicated that those with college degrees read the most, and people aged 50 and up read more than those who are younger.
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Here's a breakdown of the raw numbers from the 2008 poll.
http://www.businesswire.com/news/hom...s-Typical-Year
If you add that up, who is likely to buy e-readers? Probably the 37% of people that read more than 10 books a year. Do you REALLY think people are going to spend $100+ on an e-reader to read 4-6 books a year? Some, sure. But how many of those people read from the library or buy used? Ditto even for the people reading 10+ books a year.
I think that steep sales curve for e-readers will flatten out quite a bit before too long. They're being pushed by the price drops of this year & by the more avid readers right now.
I severely doubt we'll see growth anywhere near the music industry. Music is a lot more commonly consumed than books.