Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
For bookstores, the assumptions are 1) eBooks are significantly cheaper than hard back books (true for some books, when Amazon was using best sellers as loss leaders to build the market for eBooks) and 2) there is a degree of piracy going on with eBooks. Amazon stopped doing the loss leader thing and piracy doesn't seem to be a big problem, so neither assumption held true. Basically, releasing eBooks at the same time as the hard back did not hurt the sales figures.
For libraries, the assumption is that people borrow the eBook for free rather than buy the book, and if they have to wait to borrow the book, a significant portion will buy it instead. McMillian seems to think that their data supports this assumption. I guess we will see as McMillian expands the Tor experiment.
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I think also more fundamentally eBooks and pBooks are not always direct competitors. For some people they are equivalent, but there are those who want to read a pBook, not an eBook, and vice-versa.
Whereas a library eBook and a purchased eBook are direct competitors. It makes very little difference whether you are downloading it from Overdrive or from Amazon.
So it is logical that eBook vs pBook windowing and eBook vs eBook windowing might have different outcomes.