Quote:
Originally Posted by GtrsRGr8
This is only anecdotal evidence.
I still like to haunt the thrift stores, used book sales, etc. and (please keep this a secret!  ) buy used paper-based books. For quite a while now, I've been told by, for example, the thrift store managers, and other thrift store employees, that they have way too many books. They speak in terms, for example, of "mounds" of them (that may not be anyone's exact word, but that is the gist of what they say) in the backrooms. And the shelves "on the floor" are, many times, stuffed with used books. They get far more than they are able to sell. I could share much more.
This glut of used books seems to correspond with the surge in ebook sales about 10 years ago. That's just my impression, I have no empirical evidence to share.
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Oh, your stories are backed by many other industry news sources in the US and UK. It's not just a few areas but rather the baseline.
Most people simply don't hoard books.
There's an entire industry built around the flood of excess used books floating around; those in the best conditions feed the penny book market while the rest feed recyclers or landfills. But it's not really about ebooks. If anything, ebooks marginally reduce the excess. The flood doesn't primarily come from digital adopters purging their libraries but rather from casual readers disposing of their bandwagon "bestsellers". The flood is full of copies of things like 50 Shades, Bridget Jones, The Goldfinch, Brief History of Time, etc. That's why so many books go to the bulk disposal chutes: there's only so much demand for used copies of the specific titles. Warehousing costs money and not even the penny book industry has a use for so many copies.
Its the circle of life of dead tree pulp. From cellulose they come and to cellulose they return. If they're clean enough for recyclers.
