Wealthy males supporting e-books market

[suecsi]

Really? And the investment bankers I get on the train with nearly every day commuting from the City reading the Sun, or Nuts, or chatting loudly on their mobile about their love life - they're spending the money on e-books?

[garrybuck]

Whenever I read discussion boards about "why I like my Kindle," every other comment is "I love it because it fits in my purse."

So apparently it's young wealthy male metrosexual investment bankers. You go girl!

[suecsi]

mmm ... can Nuts readers spell 'metrosexual'?

[AlbertaCowboy]

Originally Posted by abookreader

anybody here a young male Investment Banker who'd like to chime in? Anybody????

I'm not a young male Investment banker, but I play one at parties...

[elcreative]

miaow... I don't go for romance much but if that's what Catlady likes...

Personally, as a nearly retired, barely part-time worker, I'll take being called a young, investment banker if someone'll pass me their salary so I can afford all of Hachette's books which I then probably won't read because much of their output is of no interest...

Originally Posted by Catlady

But they may be the ones buying all the science fiction ...

[SameOldStory]

More important than that article is a link within that article. If you do a search for Wealthy males supporting e-books market you can read the actual article with this link - Google and Hachette in landmark deal.

And THAT article gives hope to both the French and the rest of us. Basically Hachette has given Google the right to scan in and sell many of its out of print books. This is not the same deal as the US/Google deal.

"Google and Hachette Livre have struck a groundbreaking deal allowing the world’s second largest retail book publisher to control the scanning and electronic sale of its out-of-print French language titles."

"The agreement, covering about 50,000 mostly forgotten works of French literature and non-fiction still under copyright, is unlikely to bring in big revenues for the French group, which is owned by Lagardère. But it is a symbolic victory for publishers around the world trying to protect their businesses against the encroachment on their territory of the internet."


And there is always a forking idiot in the crowd -
"Goggle’s books project is regarded by some French political figures as a US assault on France’s cultural heritage."

Opening up "about 50,000 mostly forgotten works of French literature" is going to damage "France’s cultural heritage"? That statement says all you need to know about the total stupidity of politicians around the whole world.

[alecE]

Damn! All this time I thought I was enjoying the company of mature, literate, civilized people who liked ebooks and it turns out I've been rubbing (digital) shoulders with coke-sniffing city hooligans who read the odd ebook (perhaps?) in between wrecking various economies with crap lending decisions.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Lemurion

So we're to believe that wealthy males are the ones buying up all that romance and erotica that makes up such a large part of the ebook market - all those books written primarily by and for women?

Why do I think I hear the hamstergods laughing?

That's exactly what I was going to say.....

[Andrew H.]

I think it's limited to the US market, but the Nielson study from back in February showed an almost equal male-female split in the Kindle market in the US.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/...tter-educated/

[JeremyR]

This article seems to be mostly be talking about iPad buyers (who are the same demographic)

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

....
And there is always a forking idiot in the crowd -
"Goggle’s books project is regarded by some French political figures as a US assault on France’s cultural heritage."

Opening up "about 50,000 mostly forgotten works of French literature" is going to damage "France’s cultural heritage"? That statement says all you need to know about the total stupidity of politicians around the whole world.

[CazMar]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I think it's limited to the US market, but the Nielson study from back in February showed an almost equal male-female split in the Kindle market in the US.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/...tter-educated/

I'd have to say my personal experience backs this up - I get an even split of males and females peering over my shoulder when I read on the bus and asking me about my Kobo (they're not as common in Australia as USA). Women 30ish and upwards are more likely to have heard about them, males think it is some sort of strange looking IPad.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by JeremyR

This article seems to be mostly be talking about iPad buyers (who are the same demographic)

Not at all in the US, according to Nielson. As compared to Kindle users, IPad skew much more male (65% vs 52%), younger (63% under 35 vs. 47%), less wealthy (39% make under $80k vs. 44%), and less educated (the free info doesn't include iPad users' level of education, but 27% of K users have a masters or doctorate).

Note that many of these items are not independent variables, however: As 36% of iPad users are college-aged, they are also less likely to make as much money than older people, and are, logically, less likely to have a master's or doctorate. (Note that 27% of K users are college-aged, which is more than I would have assumed).

It would be interesting to know how many people had both.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by SameOldStory

....THAT article gives hope to both the French and the rest of us. Basically Hachette has given Google the right to scan in and sell many of its out of print books. This is not the same deal as the US/Google deal.

True, but it's part of the same project.

It's also unclear whether Hachette has the rights to distribute electronic versions, though entirely plausible -- it all depends on the contracts.

And 50k books is a good start, but there are clearly other questions, including whether this is an exclusive deal, or whether any other retailers can distribute digital copies of this material.

Originally Posted by SameOldStory[/quote

And there is always a forking idiot in the crowd -
"Goggle’s books project is regarded by some French political figures as a US assault on France’s cultural heritage." Opening up "about 50,000 mostly forgotten works of French literature" is going to damage "France’s cultural heritage"?

When it's done by an American company that showed little respect for existing arrangements? Yeah, I can see it.

I'm quite confident that if a French company was dominating the Internet and made huge strides towards digitizing tons of English books, plenty of Americans (and Brits, I presume) would be up in arms over it.

[Rebo]

I would like to see the actual data to back this up. Data from the PubTrack on US book consumer trend 2009 tells a different story:

http://www.slideshare.net/PubTrack/b...er-trends-2009
http://www.slideshare.net/PubTrack/p...crunch-bea2009

The data indicates the following:
1) 43% of book buyers are male; 57% are female. 35% of the books ae purchased by men and 65% are purchased by women.
2) Out of the female buyers, 39% are 30 - 54 yrs old, 19% 65+ yrs old, 15% 55-64 yrs old, 19% 13-29 yrs old
2) 1.6% of the all formats sold are e-books.
3) For female age group 30-44, e-book purchase is 1.7%.

The data shows there are more female book buyers. Also, % ebooks purchased by women is on par with the overall % ebooks sold. At least in the US, I can't find data substantiating the rich wealthy male are supporting the ebook market. In fact, it seems to be the opposite.