Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
Pretty much BS in my opinion. Factors that don't seem to be mentioned in the article are:
1) no used ebook market so ebooks can only kill the used pbook market if people buy new ebooks instead of used pbooks.
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It will probably depend on where you live.
I belong to a large pbook trading site, and yes, people are starting to see a slow down of posted used books for trade.
As more people go to ebooks, they aren't getting impatient and buying a pbook to read, then having it to trade.
There is a bit of a surge when someone gets an ereader and decides to switch over. I had hundreds of books I posted for trade, then sold the credits I earned in the trades and bought ebook replacements. So I posted a lot of books at once I might not have put on the market for a long time. But now that I've cleaned house off all but my keepers, I've not got anything new to put into the system. So if a pbook comes up that I want, it's easier to buy a credit on the site to get it than posting an pbook for trade. And there's fewer pbooks I'm interested in getting, so I've got a small stash of credits I don't have any use for.
Since the site if full of people who read huge amounts of books, the lack of new books in the system is starting to show as more and more people switch.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
2) new ebook prices remain substantially higher, on average, than used pbook prices. Most people follow their pocketbooks so it's unlikely they'll buy new ebooks rather than used pbooks.
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It depends on what you like to read. The biggest draw for the people on the swap site to switch over are the Kindle Freebies, their Loan program and now open enrollment in libraries using Overdrive.
Between the three, most people I know of have more books than they know what to do with, for free.
And even at the site, experienced traders usually spend about $2 a pbook. The 99 cent books out there are a huge draw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by calvin-c
3) due to copyright extension fewer & fewer books are entering public domain so I don't think public domain books form a significant part of the used pbook market. I agree that ebooks will probably kill whatever part of the market PD does represent but I don't think it'll have an impact on the market as a whole.
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I think that as long as there are still sites on-line where you can get a $2 used pb book, the on-line site will stay open. But the local UBS in my area are pretty pricey. The one that's been open the longest is no longer very cheap, charging only about 1-2 dollars under the new purchase price for a used book.
In a lot of cases, the ebook is cheaper than the used pbook at those stores. They're pricing themselves out of business against both new pbooks and ebooks.