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Originally Posted by sirbruce
Way to selectively quote. That 21% decline was just for the audio segment. To reiterate, sales were down last year, primarily in hardback, mass market paperback, and book club/mail order. Trade paperbacks showed a modest increase (probably from people buying them instead of hardbacks). That somewhat contradicts your earlier summation that primarily only hardback sales were down, and that paperback sales made up for it.
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It's hardly my fault the article itself is so selective in what it says. The point wasn't audiobooks, though, the point was "one-time increase because of blockbuster book hitting the stores". Doesn't matter if it was an audio version or a paper one, because both vary with demand.
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I actually don't think ebook piracy has much to do with the book industry's problems over the past decade. Embracing ebooks would help stop the bleeding, though, and find new sources of revenue. Long-term, literary reading must be re-emphasized in our education system.
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What problem are you talking about, though? as my second quote says, compound annual growth for the last decade was still positive, the slump in 2008 notwithstanding. Which was my point.
2008 is a year in "recession", i.e., reduced sales overall.
So why would the book market be different?: (article came out today)
Retailers have absorbed the lessons of a ruinous holiday season. Caught with shelves full of unsold merchandise, they slashed prices to draw in shoppers. But the strategy was unsustainable: It decimated profits and resulted in massive layoffs, killing off a number of chains, including Circuit City. Serving recession-era shoppers, retailers realized, would require a long-term strategy featuring lower prices.
"What we have is retailers reacting to a very low-appetite consumer and a consumer that has been now taught to wait," said Michael Silverstein, senior partner at Boston Consulting Group.
Also, "Reading" has been deemphasized for decades, and revenues were still going up. Why was that? Were they just raising prices to compensate, thus forcing those who still read to make up for the difference and more, or because the problem isn't quite as bad as is being made out?