I get what everyone's saying about "for me it's ebook or no book." I'm a little that way myself. (Not quite, but I do now greatly prefer to buy an ebook in most cases.) I guess my question is partly trying to get a sense of how pervasive that view is (not that MR necessarily represents the whole spectrum of people who buy ebooks--but you're the only sample I have handy).
Still, I know that there are ebook buyers who also buy paper books. Or who are in the minority in a family of book readers, as I am. So, for instance, I have sometimes bought paper copies of ebooks I read, and given them as Christmas gifts.
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Originally Posted by ATimson
Obviously retailers don't care about them, but does Tor consider sales of the ebook equivalent to pbook sales? If so, I'm wondering how the delay in a commercial ebook might have hurt you, among people like me and the others above who resist buying in print at all costs.
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That's a question I wish I knew the answer to. The Tor ebook was delayed more than a year from when it was first promised. I'm sure that cost some sales. I don't know if the publishers have yet begun to think in terms of an ebook sale being as good as a paper sale. The bigger problem is that in the treebook retail business, there's a cascade effect: poor sales of this year's title results in reduced orders for the next book, which results in lower sales, etc. It's called "ordering to the net," and it's stupid but it's a death spiral that has ruined more than one author's career.