Poll: 3 out of 4 Americans prefer paper books

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

The world's largest manufacturer of printing presses (Heidelberger Druckmaschinen) closed down not too long ago (early this year)

It's still a listed at €1.80 on the DAX (was under €1.00 Q42012), and according to Bloomberg it employs 14,215 people.

BR

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

It's still a listed at €1.80 on the DAX (was under €1.00 Q42012), and according to Bloomberg it employs 14,215 people.

BR

Another government bailout to save the work for the employees at tax payers' expense?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Another government bailout to save the work for the employees at tax payers' expense?

Could be.
Maybe they expect the economics of batch-printed pbooks to recover after the ebook fad ends.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Could be.
Maybe they expect the economics of batch-printed pbooks to recover after the ebook fad ends.

I don't think that Heidelberg's problems have anything to do with e-books; printing companies have been suffering basically since the rise of the personal computer*, and the decline of print newspapers and magazines has hurt them too.

*In the early 70's, a lot of companies (even relatively small ones) would have in house printers - if you needed to circulate a document, you'd have your secretary type it up and then take the typed pages down to the print shop where they would run off copies for distribution on a small printing press. Companies that were smaller or needed to do this infrequently would take it to a commercial print shop, which used to be a lot more common than they are now.

[rem736]

Originally Posted by Catlady

If a survey asks me if I prefer train or plane, they're not looking for an objective analysis of the merits of each. They're looking for my personal preference--my subjective opinion--which can be based on anything, logical or illogical, sensible or stupid. I may have experience to back up my opinion, or I may not. It's still my opinion, and I get to tell it to the survey takers, and they get to tick off the proper boxes.

i completely understand your point. however, what i am going for is this: if you have only read from paper books and have never tried ebooks, then can you with 100% absolute certainty feel that you would not like ebooks over paper? you have to try it out before you can give an honest opinion. that's all.

the survey as it stands says that more people prefer paper books to ebooks. that's legit. i agree. but if we have the crosstabs available to us and there is a category for those who have read regularly from both paper as well as ebooks, then i would suspect that the preference pendulum would swing the other way.

[danskmacabre]

It's already been mentioned, but in my experience, when talking about Ereaders to friends who have never used one, pretty much ALL of them were vehemently against ereaders, staing the usual reasons why:

1: you can't replace the look and feel of a book
2: I'd hate reading on an ereader
3: It's just "not the same"
4: I'm too old fashioned to use an ereader

and various other reason like that.

However once they actually try one for a bit ( a lot of them got free ereaders with mobile contracts), without exception, for the purposes of reading novels, they now prefer using ereaders by far.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by danskmacabre

It's already been mentioned, but in my experience, when talking about Ereaders to friends who have never used one, pretty much ALL of them were vehemently against ereaders, staing the usual reasons why:

1: you can replace the look and feel of a book
2: I'd hate reading on an ereader
3: It's just "not the same"
4: I'm too old fashioned to use an ereader

and various other reason like that.

However once they actually try one for a bit ( a lot of them got free ereaders with mobile contracts), without exception, for the purposes of reading novels, they now prefer using ereaders by far.

While the poll results may (on the face of it) be valid for all Americans, it seems pointless to include people who have never used an ereader in the poll. The purpose of this poll probably was to produce the result of "Americans prefer paper books", not to actually evaluate serious opinions by those who have tried ebooks. Let the publishers sleep more soundly, now that they have poll results to support their aversion to ebooks.

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

While the poll results may (on the face of it) be valid for all Americans, it seems pointless to include people who have never used an ereader in the poll. The purpose of this poll probably was to produce the result of "Americans prefer paper books", not to actually evaluate serious opinions by those who have tried ebooks. Let the publishers sleep more soundly, now that they have poll results to support their aversion to ebooks.

one important question

is poll for fiction or non fiction?

I expect big difference.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by danskmacabre

It's already been mentioned, but in my experience, when talking about Ereaders to friends who have never used one, pretty much ALL of them were vehemently against ereaders, staing the usual reasons why:

1: you can replace the look and feel of a book
2: I'd hate reading on an ereader
3: It's just "not the same"
4: I'm too old fashioned to use an ereader

and various other reason like that.

However once they actually try one for a bit ( a lot of them got free ereaders with mobile contracts), without exception, for the purposes of reading novels, they now prefer using ereaders by far.

Well, I thought it would be the same and was surprised when there was some things with ebooks that made the experience sub-optimal for me. I now mostly read fiction books on my Kindle but that is not because I prefer the reading experience on the Kindle. It is because it is more convenient to buy books to the Kindle, the books takes no place, you can enlarge the letters and so on. So i do not know what the correct answer in the poll would have been for me. But if you do not mind the inconvenience of buying a paper book and the small letters and its size than I am not surprised at all that paper book reading would be preferred.

Then there is one obvious thing that does not work for ebooks and that is browsing and fast looking up things you just read a couple of pages back.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, I thought it would be the same and was surprised when there was some things with ebooks that made the experience sub-optimal for me. I now mostly read fiction books on my Kindle but that is not because I prefer the reading experience on the Kindle. It is because it is more convenient to buy books to the Kindle, the books takes no place, you can enlarge the letters and so on. So i do not know what the correct answer in the poll would have been for me. But if you do not mind the inconvenience of buying a paper book and the small letters and its size than I am not surprised at all that paper book reading would be preferred.

Then there is one obvious thing that does not work for ebooks and that is browsing and fast looking up things you just read a couple of pages back.

Why is going a few pages back slower on a late model ereader than it is on a pbook? Definitely not on my Aura.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Why is going a few pages back slower on a late model ereader than it is on a pbook? Definitely not on my Aura.

Well, you have to go back also so you have to bookmark the current position or choose a menu to go to the last read. In a paper book that is must faster since you just use you finger to keep the current position.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by tompe

Well, you have to go back also so you have to bookmark the current position or choose a menu to go to the last read. In a paper book that is must faster since you just use you finger to keep the current position.

Bookmarking also takes no time at all with touch readers. Just touch the upper right corner. So we are talking split seconds here. Besides, you could remember the page number just by looking at it at the bottom. And the page turning is faster than in a pbook, unless you have the dexterity of a magician.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

Bookmarking also takes no time at all with touch readers. Just touch the upper right corner. So we are talking split seconds here. Besides, you could remember the page number just by looking at it at the bottom. And the page turning is faster than in a pbook, unless you have the dexterity of a magician.

No, it is not faster if you are going to look for certain passage. At least not on my Kindle.

[mike_bike_kite]

I'm not American but I've travelled across most of the US (admittedly many years ago) and I always had problems simply trying to find a bookshop. I just assumed that reading wasn't that big a thing in the US. I'd be quite interested in what those 3 out of 4 Americans were intending to do with a paperback book

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

I don't think that Heidelberg's problems have anything to do with e-books; printing companies have been suffering basically since the rise of the personal computer*, and the decline of print newspapers and magazines has hurt them too.

Yes, the PC desktop publishing revolution of the 80's and its followups in the 90's have hurt printing companies for a long time, especially in the corporate arena. (Been there, done my bit. )

But I was (jokingly, in view of the thread topic) referring to the fact that pbook economics are non-linear; small print runs are more expensive than bigger ones and many small runs are no substitute, profit-wise, for one big one. Yet all we hear from the woe-is-us pbook camp is exactly that; the future is less books being published and smaller print runs. If that materializes as they claim--and I for one think it will--pbook economics will only get worse and that means that any printing machinery manufacturer that may be facing problems now isn't looking at an easy road ahead. Their challenge isn't lack of growh anymoree butt more like managing reduced demand.

The thing is, with the trad-pub advocates in the media currently spinning scenarios like crazy, looking to convince themselves that ebook adoption has peaked, that the worst is past, that the years-long gradual decline in pbook sales won't continue--A campaign that this poll appears to have been commisioned to support--it wouldn't be too hard to see a government bureaucrat buying into the narrative and acting to provide "temporary" support to the pbook infrastructure manufacturers to help them weather the "temporary" disruption until the pbook business returns to "normal".

On the one hand we have the BPHs reporting steady, continuous declines in trade pbook sales that are only being compensated for by ebook sales, and on the other we have this report pretending that ebook appeal is limited.

I dunno, but if both are true then you would expect the trade publishing business to get worse rather than better.

As I said above, the poll results aren't saying what some people think they are saying. Placed in the full context of the market as it exists, this poll is bad news for print-advocates.