When will eBooks take over from print?

[BreezyDay]

It seems that readers are opting for ebooks over print books more and more (at least for books that don't require complicated formatting, etc). Lately, I'm selling a lot more ebooks than print books and other author friends have indicated their experience is the same. Could it be possibly the lower prices for an E vs P book or is it portability/convenience/space issues that's driving that?

My guess is that it'll be the publishing industry (publishing houses, distributors, bookstores) that decides if/when print books go away or become less available. They control the presses. Even if there is still a demand, that demand may not matter. It may not be cost-effective for them to continue.

I know that way before ebooks starting becoming popular, some companies were no longer providing printed documentation of technical manuals along with their software, only pdf versions. There was no option to "purchase" a printed set even if you were willing to pay extra for it.


Regina
Boost your ability to think on your feet by solving these unusual dilemmas

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[JimKal]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Then there is no need to quibble over the "whole world" part of ebooks taking over-- just as there is no need to quibble over if electricity has taken over oil lamps, even though there are still parts of the world using oil lamps.

But you have to admit, I hope, that quibbling is part of the fun in this discussion. And by that quibbling we explore the issue more thoroughly. I tried to do a quick search on eBook sales and was unable to find definitive data, at least I didn't think it was definitive. I was able to find gross dollar sales for the US and percentage gains in sales for the US. Gross dollar figures are deceptive when an eBook may sell for less than a paper book. Two more important figures would be total sales - how many eBooks versus how many paper books, and eBook profits versus paper book profits.

But, I have enjoyed the conversation.

[Scott Nicholson]

Jim, you'll never find e-book sales data because the only reported data is for Big Six publishers or stuff run through Bookscan, and there is probably MORE activity outside the system than in. When you consider free downloads on Scribd, Smashwords, Feedbooks, et al, sales by individual author sites, indie authors selling through Smashwords and Amazon, established authors selling their own backlist through all outlets, and plain old direct sales or deliveries, the only real data you ever see is a very narrow snapshot taken by a lens pointed in only one direction.

Remember back when Apple was claiming a fourth of all ebook sales? Yeah, riiiight. Statistics are lies manipulated by whomever is presenting them!

Scott

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by JimKal

...Gross dollar figures are deceptive when an eBook may sell for less than a paper book. Two more important figures would be total sales - how many eBooks versus how many paper books, and eBook profits versus paper book profits...

It astounds me how business still use gross sales figures to indicate activity when, as you pointed out so well, those are deceptive. When I worked in a convenience store, management would judge how busy a shift was by the gross sales made during the shift. Duties varied from shift to shift. The morning and afternoon shifts primarily worked registers. The night shift had less register business and concentrated on cleaning, stocking, and anything the first two shifts didn't get done (which was frequently a lot). The third shifter could have very few customers in a night and still be busier than a one armed paper habger in a stiff breeze. Even number of sales would be inaccurate as an activity indicator was grossly (pardon the pun) inaccurate as an indicator of activity because during the week, one of the biggest movers, alcohol, was typically sold by the can. On the weekend, it was typically sold by the case. It takes the same amount of time to ring up and restock a can (sometimes even more) as it does to ring up and restock a case. Number of sales and gross sales were dramatically higher during the weekend yet they actually weren't as busy as during the week.

When I worked in warehousing, management used the number of transactions in a day to gauge how busy a warehouse was. Never mind one transaction could be handing someone a small part in easy reach, having to spend 15 minutes pulling a part down from a rack, or 30 minutes (or more) delivering a large part somewhere. Not included were normal overhead activities such as logging and putting away incoming stock, conducting mandatory inventory audits, cleaning, loading and unloading trucks, etc.

[GA Russell]

Unless a book equivalent of Big Champagne becomes involved, I don't think we'll ever know the number of free books downloaded.

Of course, the number of free books that go unread will be much greater than the number of paid books that go unread.

However, I believe that if one wants to know the extent of the penetration of eBooks into the book market, then one must include the free books. The fact that no one is making any money off them doesn't mean they don't exist.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by JimKal

But you have to admit, I hope, that quibbling is part of the fun in this discussion.

Maybe. But I would think a more practical working definition of "universal acceptance" would be "universal acceptance in the parts of the world where you would expect it to be likely." You don't have to hold off on saying "ebooks are everywhere" until the Bushmen of the Kalahari have them. (The cutoff point on which level of societal modernity and wealth fits in the range of "likely to have ebooks" is of course a matter of debate.)

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Then there is no need to quibble over the "whole world" part of ebooks taking over-- just as there is no need to quibble over if electricity has taken over oil lamps, even though there are still parts of the world using oil lamps.

Sure there is, because you need to define your scope when you ask a question like that.

A lot of discussion I've seen like this fails precisely because scope isn't defined, and the person asking or those answering are making implicit assumptions, like the presence of the underlying infrastructure needed for it to happen, that simply aren't true everywhere.

The answer if you explicitly mean the developed nations of North America and Europe will be rather different than if you include the rest of the world.

What the answer to a question like this is depends upon where you are talking about when you ask it.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BreezyDay

It seems that readers are opting for ebooks over print books more and more (at least for books that don't require complicated formatting, etc). Lately, I'm selling a lot more ebooks than print books and other author friends have indicated their experience is the same. Could it be possibly the lower prices for an E vs P book or is it portability/convenience/space issues that's driving that?

If I had to guess, the latter. Price is a factor, but probably not the most important.

Reading is by nature a foreground activity. You are concentrating on it when you do it. It is therefore competing for your discretionary time as well as your income, and must take its chances with all the other things you could be doing instead. I think for most folks, the real limiting factor is the time to read the books they buy, and not the money available to buy them.

Ebooks provide portability and convenience. You can carry a library in your pocket or bag, and read anytime you have a few spare minutes, where ever you happen to be. Because of this, they increase the discretionary time you have to read. Reading's biggest competitor is TV, but you're unlikely to be watching TV while commuting or standing in line for something. You can be reading.

My guess is that it'll be the publishing industry (publishing houses, distributors, bookstores) that decides if/when print books go away or become less available. They control the presses. Even if there is still a demand, that demand may not matter. It may not be cost-effective for them to continue.

The don't control the presses. Every one I'm aware contracts out actual printing and binding.

And Print On Demand is established and pervasive. It's actually easy to get printed books created.

The question is demand. Depending upon the publisher, there will be minimum numbers that must be printed and sold to make it worth doing. If demand falls below that, the publisher may choose to offer an ebook edition, or may simply opt not to publish that book.

I know that way before ebooks starting becoming popular, some companies were no longer providing printed documentation of technical manuals along with their software, only pdf versions. There was no option to "purchase" a printed set even if you were willing to pay extra for it.

How much extra? Those printed manuals are expensive.

It's a part of the evolution of the software market. BAck in the 1980's, for example, Word Perfect ruled the PC world as word processing software of choice. They had a toll free tech support line to answer questions, and a warehouse in Orem, UT, with one of every printer they could find because the documents WP was used to create would be printed, and WP wanted to work on whatever printer the user had;.

Of course, back then, a copy of WP cost as much as a full productivity suite with WP, spreadsheet, database, and presentations costs new, and WP was the number one seller in its category.

Vendors no longer provide that sort of support free, and don't include printed manuals, because it simply costs too much.

Regina

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Dennis

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Reading's biggest competitor is TV, but you're unlikely to be watching TV while commuting of standing in line for something. You [i]can[i] be reading.



Dennis

What about tablet computers with streaming? At this point in time it may not be entirely viable, but with G4 looming over the horizon and Android based iPad competitors getting to market, how long will it take before you can have TV anywhere, anytime?

[JimKal]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

It astounds me how business still use gross sales figures to indicate activity when, as you pointed out so well, those are deceptive. When I worked in a convenience store, management would judge how busy a shift was by the gross sales made during the shift. Duties varied from shift to shift. The morning and afternoon shifts primarily worked registers. The night shift had less register business and concentrated on cleaning, stocking, and anything the first two shifts didn't get done (which was frequently a lot). The third shifter could have very few customers in a night and still be busier than a one armed paper habger in a stiff breeze.

That is a good observation as to why a business can fail when "management" doesn't fully understand their own business. I spent years working in government and I would try to point out that measuring the wrong thing would lead to the wrong results. Measuring the number of calls a person handled says nothing about the accuracy of the information provided. In the situation you site, if the number of employees is reduced on the third shift to the point where those other tasks can't be completed, it begins to impact sales on the other shifts as items are not in stock for easy sale or the store becomes unappealing due to routine maintenance not being done. Good point Lady F.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

How much extra? Those printed manuals are expensive.

Surely 80% of the cost has already been incurred before printing?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Surely 80% of the cost has already been incurred before printing?

Still a considerable expense, especially for something you are giving away with the product.

And product manuals won't have the same cost breakdown as books offered by trade publishers. Among other things, the author's advance goes away, as the book is written by employees on salary as part of the development team.

Software houses don't offer printed manuals these days because of costs. They may offer a PDF, and if you want a printed copy, you can roll your own from it.

The goal is software with a clear enough interface and well integrated help functions that the user doesn't need a manual, but it looks like one of those destinations that can be traveled toward but never actually reached.
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Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

What about tablet computers with streaming? At this point in time it may not be entirely viable, but with G4 looming over the horizon and Android based iPad competitors getting to market, how long will it take before you can have TV anywhere, anytime?

That's a good question, though I suspect reading would still have an edge because of the nature of the content. I think it's easier to stop reading at the end of a sentence, close the book, go on about whatever other task you are engaged in and pick up where you left off in the book later than to stop watching a show in the middle. (I would, at least. Others may differ.)

And things like G4 assume you have reception, which won't be universal even in highly developed areas. I can read an ebook on the NYC subway, for example, but can't use my cell phone in the underground portions of the trip. To watch video, it would have to be a file stored on my device.

But ultimately, I'm not really worried by that sort of competition. Folks who read for pleasure in the first place will continue to so, whether it's paper books or electronic versions, and ebook readers will make that more convenient. They read even though TV competes for their time, and I don't see TV streamed to a tablet substantially altering those habits.

But I am a little surprised I haven't seen a handheld device with streaming video capability specifically pushed as a device for watching YouTube.
______
Dennis

[BreezyDay]

Originally posted by DMcCunney
If I had to guess, the latter. Price is a factor, but probably not the most important. Reading is by nature a foreground activity. You are concentrating on it when you do it. It is therefore competing for your discretionary time as well as your income, and must take its chances with all the other things you could be doing instead. I think for most folks, the real limiting factor is the time to read the books they buy, and not the money available to buy them.

Thanks for your thoughts on it. As an author, I was curious. Haven't ventured into the ebook realm as a reader yet, just as an author. Although probably heading there before too too long. Haven't had a chance to research the different options very well yet. Lots of players getting in on the action. Got an email from my cable company about buying a reader from them!

Print is really getting scarcer and scarcer. In scheduling my team for some training recently, the trainer mentioned that they now provide ekits instead of printed training manuals. We're curious to see how that'll work since folks are used taking notes on the pages of the manuals during a course to keep them together with the page the note refers to. Hmmm. I guess we'll see how it goes. I wonder if the ekits allow you to add electronic sticky notes to the pages. That would be nice. Gotta ask the next time I speak with them.


Regina
[Promotion deleted - MODERATOR]

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BreezyDay

Thanks for your thoughts on it. As an author, I was curious. Haven't ventured into the ebook realm as a reader yet, just as an author. Although probably heading there before too too long. Haven't had a chance to research the different options very well yet. Lots of players getting in on the action. Got an email from my cable company about buying a reader from them!

Your cable company? Curious. Which were they offering? I'm not offhand certain what would be in it for them, beyond a cut of the sale, unless they have plans down the road to make content for them available, too.

Meanwhile, there are lots of options, and we're all waiting for the dust to settle a bit. The questions to ask are similar to the earlier days of personal computers, where the answer to "What should I buy", began with "What do you plan to do with it?". It all came down to what software was available to do what you wanted to do, and the software you needed would partly determine what you had to buy to run it.

Something similar applies to ebooks, as there are three dominant ebook formats are an assortment of lesser ones, and different readers display different formats. The question becomes what do you want to read, what form is it available in, where do you get it, and what do you need to display it.

Amazon's Kindle, for example, uses the format designed by French ebook publisher Mobipocket, who Amazon bought. Mobipocket works for most books, and Amazon has an enormous selection. But Amazon uses a proprietary form of Digital Rights Management. The intent is vendor lock-in: if you have a Kindle, or Kindle app for other platforms like the iPad, you have to purchase ebooks from Amazon. If the book is not protected by DRM, the Kindle can display any Mobi format title, but anything you might be likely to buy will have DRM.

The Sony Reader and Barnes and Noble nook use ePub as the format. There will probably be DRM there, too, but you'll be less restricted in where to buy it, as both license Adobe's software for display. The questions become the availability of what you want to read and the price charged.

There is a fair bit of stuff in PDF format, such as textbooks. These can be problematic for handhelds because the PDFs are not usually created so the viewer can reflow the text to fit the screen size on a handheld device. In many cases, the material is such that if it did reflow, it would make hash of the content. Amazon wants to get into the education market, and created the Kindle DX with a larger screen size and PDF display capability precisely for that case.

And the most popular dedicated readers, like the Kindle, Sony, and nook models, all use an eInk screen. eInk is considered easier on the eyes by may users, and has much longer battery life than backlit displays, since once a page is displayed on an eInk screen, no power is required to maintain it. But eInk is gray-scale only. It does not support color. So if color is a requirement in your content, eInk is not for you.

You're in the right place to do the research. Whatever might be used to display an ebook, someone on MR uses it and can give you chapter and verse on its strengths and weaknesses.

Print is really getting scarcer and scarcer. In scheduling my team for some training recently, the trainer mentioned that they now provide ekits instead of printed training manuals. We're curious to see how that'll work since folks are used taking notes on the pages of the manuals during a course to keep them together with the page the note refers to. Hmmm. I guess we'll see how it goes. I wonder if the ekits allow you to add electronic sticky notes to the pages. That would be nice. Gotta ask the next time I speak with them.

What sort of training, and what form to the ekits take? What must you use to read them?

One feature appearing in ebook readers is a note taking ability. This is critical for things like text books, and one of the things that can make a used textbook valuable is someone else's marginal notes and emphases on what the particular teacher of that class thinks important and is likely to test on.

I don't expect to see a resale market for used ebooks, for a variety of reasons, but one of the things Amazon was trumpeting about the Kindle DX was a collaborative facility where students could share notes via Amazon's network.

Depending upon what your team will wind up using, similar approaches might be possible.

Regina
Unusual Dilemmas to Solve Your Way Out of

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Dennis