Quote:
Originally Posted by Liviu_5
It's a matter of resource distribution - as others mentioned it is not about *one* book and a computer, but a stream of books and a computer.
Why spend 16$ for a new (discounted) hc at Amazon, when you can spend the same money for 4 used hc's at same Amazon and read the new one from the library?
I think it is pretty well accepted that the book business - at least on the *for pleasure, not work* side - is driven by a relatively small percent (10-20) of heavy book buyers, rather than the casual buyer.
The casual buyer may drive the *high profit* bestsellers, though usually those are the "breakthrough unknowns" rather than the big-advance authors, but the backbone of the current model is the heavy book buyer and this is why the NYT article above is persuasive for me to a large extent, if the trend it perceives of the heavy book buyer shifting more resources to used books is valid
And one rational and workable response is inexpensive ebooks at least for the backlist.
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I submit to you that heavy readers have always switched more heavily to used books as they got older. The writings of the American founding fathers reference exchanging books. I think that as people age they find that having things be new is less important than it seemed in their youth.
I don't believe that this is in any way new, excepting that it is much faster to find a specific book now. In 1987 I had a used book store in Stillwater, Oklahoma try to find me a copy of Robert Service's
Ploughman of the Moon. It took them nearly three years. I just hit google shopping search for the title and six popped uo on the first page. Back in 1987, I bought other books while waiting, today I get what I want withing a week.