Quote:
Originally Posted by MattW
My point was that we need to compare actual sales to actual sales, not pbook sales to Overdrive lending. That's why people referring to KU or similar services in order to point out how great ebooks are really doing are completely missing the point.
Matt
|
No. They are not missing the point. It is like looking at the music industry but disregarding the very substantial market share of subscription streaming services. The fact that there is no agreed or perfect method to compare a read on KU with an actual sale does not justify disregarding it.
The point which you seem to have missed is that these figures do not take account of the majority of ebook sales, even if you take no account whatsoever of KU. I will assume for the sake of this discussion that you are correct in identifying the question addressed in this thread as "whether ebooks are losing steam in "taking over the market"". In this case, these figures establish that the answer is affirmative for the books covered by the report, which are essentially traditionally published books. Their value in resolving the question so far as the entire market is concerned is at best indirect, as the enormous number of ebooks not taken into account tend towards a negative answer. If you truly want to answer the question you will need to look to Author Earnings, which attempts to cover the whole market.
It seems that ebooks are going from strength to strength outside of traditionally published agency priced ebooks.
And yes, it is wonderful that we can all mostly get what we want. I heavily favour ebooks but if you prefer print books I have absolutely no desire to deprive you of them. Print books are not going away any time soon, and I don't expect they will ever go away completely.