E-book sales down

[ElspethB]

E-book sales slip and print is far from dead, according to this NY Times article.

[kennyc]

Can't we all just get along?

[kennyc]

I love this quote from the article:

“The e-book terror has kind of subsided,” he said.

[DrNefario]

From where I'm sitting it seems like the big publishers have raised their ebook prices (or prevented Amazon from cutting their prices) until I no longer want to buy any.

[kennyc]

In many cases that's exactly right. I'm still buying a lot of used paper books via Amazon.

[HappyMartin]

The publishers say their ebook sales are down and sales of print books are up. Amazon says sale of ebook continues to grow.

I can only assume the traditional publishers are canabalising their own ebook sales with p books and there is growth they are missing out on with the growing sales of self published ebooks.

No idea why there should be all this panic about ebooks anyway. Are these publishers in the book business or the printing business? To me a book is a book. Format is irrelevant other than convenience.

[gunbad]

Their hope seems to be hinged on the decline in sales of the dedicated ereaders.

[Geralt]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

No idea why there should be all this panic about ebooks anyway. Are these publishers in the book business or the printing business? To me a book is a book. Format is irrelevant other than convenience.

Look a common sense opinion. This will never fly
15 bucks for a new book. They are killing themselves and they dont even know it. A lot of people are willing to pay more for trad. published than self published, so they have to find that balance. 15 bucks aint balance. It's a goddamn robbery.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

The publishers say their ebook sales are down and sales of print books are up. Amazon says sale of ebook continues to grow.

I can only assume the traditional publishers are canabalising their own ebook sales with p books and there is growth they are missing out on with the growing sales of self published ebooks.

No idea why there should be all this panic about ebooks anyway. Are these publishers in the book business or the printing business? To me a book is a book. Format is irrelevant other than convenience.

Their panic stems from the fact that in their minds ebooks = Amazon. And Amazon = Indies and level playing field without front table payola.

Lost in this "we're saved!" meme is that the bulk of their pbook "growth" is coming at Amazon.

Also lost is that they are trumpeting a significant decline (5-%) in high margin ebook sales and a smaller 1.5% growth in low margin hardcovers as good news.

[Rizla]

Originally Posted by HappyMartin

The publishers say their ebook sales are down and sales of print books are up. Amazon says sale of ebook continues to grow.

Amazon is selling a lot of self-pubs. Traditional publishers are selling less ebooks and more pbooks. I suppose.

[Shane R]

I found the quote in the subject line online, and it led to the following article.

It fits me...and you?

As readers migrated to new digital devices, e-book sales soared, up 1,260 percent between 2008 and 2010, alarming booksellers that watched consumers use their stores to find titles they would later buy online. Print sales dwindled, bookstores struggled to stay open, and publishers and authors feared that cheaper e-books would cannibalize their business.

Then in 2011, the industry’s fears were realized when Borders declared bankruptcy.

Now, there are signs that some e-book adopters are returning to print, or becoming hybrid readers, who juggle devices and paper. E-book sales fell by 10 percent in the first five months of this year, according to the Association of American Publishers, which collects data from nearly 1,200 publishers. Digital books accounted last year for around 20 percent of the market, roughly the same as they did a few years ago.

E-books’ declining popularity may signal that publishing, while not immune to technological upheaval, will weather the tidal wave of digital technology better than other forms of media, like music and television.

I still buy from Amazon. I don't often buy popular; and many of the dead-tree versions that I want and have tried to get from physical bookstores have to ordered anyway, and at a greater price than Amazon (throwing side-eye at the brick and mortar Barnes & Noble I visited last week.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/23/bu...from-dead.html

[issybird]

Thread merged with prior thread about the NYT article.

[Shane R]

I can say with 100% confidence that my thread would have been 101% better than this existing sorry I missed it thread. ;-)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Shane R

I can say with 100% confidence that my thread would have been 101% better than this existing sorry I missed it thread. ;-)

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Exactly.

There'd have been NO jiggery-pokery emoticons in my thread!