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Originally Posted by Deskisamess
Many of his points are valid. I am curious how many people just wander aimlessly through Amazon looking for their next book. It is indeed a very large sludge pile.
Which numbers are wrong?
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Wandering aimlessly through Amazon looking for my next book is kind of fun. It's not my best way of finding books but it's probably the one I enjoy most. And I do find books that way at times.
It's a bit similar to wandering through a book store, picking up a book here and there when the cover or title attracts you and glancing at the back cover to see if you're interested. The biggest difference at Amazon is that they also have user reviews; thus more information, usually, if not always, helpful and reliable.
I think Goodereader's statement "We live in a world full of terrible e-book titles that ruin ebook discovery and make it difficult to find a good book." is just silly. Yes there are more bad books available. But there are far more resources and much better information available to help us find the sorts of books we want.
Technology is problem solving and when you find a solution to a problem you nearly always introduce new problems, followed by new solutions which introduce more problems. Koslowski's statement focuses on the problems created by good solutions and ignores the solutions to those problems.
As for which numbers are wrong, "It is no small wonder why e-book sales have plummeted in recent years." is wrong. Ebook sales by major publishers, as reflected in numbers from organizations of major publishers have gone down as their prices skyrocketed. Ebook sales overall have increased according to Data Guy. Koslowski didn't give numbers in that statement so please rephrase your question to ask which relationships are wrong. It's not arithmetic. It's analysis.
Here's my version. Technology has made reading a lot better and freed us from the strictures of publishers so we have more books available. It's also given us better tools to find the kind of books we want. We have Bookbub, Goodreads, Book Gorilla, etc. And the old standby, word of mouth is now word of forum, blog, email, SMS, etc. Finding a good book to read has never been easier.
The problem, as I see it, isn't finding enough good books, it's figuring out how many I can afford to buy and selecting from those just the ones I want most. It's a little like the Assassin getting his 40 virgins and scratching his head as he tries to choose. Oh what a difficult problem!!!
Barry