People Don't Buy Books Anymore...

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by crich70

Kindle has the ability to switch quickly too sometimes. I've got the KJV and a Bible Encyclopedia both on my Kindle and sometimes when I want to look up the meaning of something my kindle goes from the Bible to the Encyclopedia to give me the meaning of the word. And some of the commentaries have very good links between the actual scripture and what the author of the commentary wrote about the passage in question. John Gill's commentary is good for that and the book is only $5.99 over at Amazon. As I recall it's a larger file since it contains both the bible and his commentary in one file so it does take a little longer to download. So does the Encyclopedia for that matter.

There are certainly publishers that do a good job of making their ebooks easy to use. I've also done some hatchet jobs on epubs that I've bought (NIV Study Bible notes with an ESV Bible), but I'd like to be able to either look at or flip between two (or more) arbitrary books at once.

[Laridae]

Originally Posted by meeera

A lot of books I want to read aren't available as ebooks within my library's system.

That's my problem too - most of my reading comes from the public library. My first preference is ebooks for their convenience but I'll take the printed book if that's all I can get or it comes in sooner.

It goes without saying that my % of ebooks would continue to rise in the future depending on availability at my local libraries.

[Ginwen]

For reading almost exclusively ebooks (the main exception, which will go away soon, is I'll usually pick up a paperback when I'm going to fly). There are some kinds of books I still prefer as paper: travel books, cookbook, some reference books--I've tried these as ebooks but it just doesn't work that well for me.

In the rare case that I really want to read something and it's only available in paper, I'm not going to let the format determine what I do or don't read. This used to be more of an issue, not much I read now that doesn't come out as an ebook.

[Pati]

Originally Posted by Sydney's Mom

About 95% I just run into pbooks. Last night, I was at a fundraising meeting at our library, and saw Bleeding Edge, by Thomas Pynchon. Didn't hear anything about it, but it looked interesting, so I checked it out. Same thing with strolling along the book tables at Costco. They just jump in my cart.

They jump into my cart everywhere! I still can't stop myself from perusing the book aisles.

Originally Posted by HYPE

"People Don't Buy Books Anymore..." This kind of broad statements always makes me smile.

Only occasions which might force me to buy a paper book is either when it's for college or when the author is signing it. The latter happened two days ago and I just had to buy one to get to meet him and get a signature. Still bought the ebook though.

One of the most recent pbooks I bought was a signed copy. I couldn't resist.

I'm in the 90%+ ebooks category, but I still have to have the paper editions of a couple of authors. I own everything That I could get my hands on that Stephen King has written. With his last one - I bought in both paper and digital editions. I actually read the digital one - mostly because of the weight and carrying it back and forth to work- but I couldn't resist adding the paper version to my shelf.

And my college textbooks - I still get paper, just because I do a lot of flipping back and forth, which is too much of a PITA to do with a digital version for me.

[Grace Elliot]

I'm currently researching Georgian history and there are some awesome paper books from the British Library that aren't available as ebooks - so this has pushed my percentage up on paperbooks.
Fiction 100 % ebook.

[barutanseijin]

I subscribe to a few digital publications that come out in .txt & .pdfs, and i convert a lot of online content into epubs to read on an e-ink screen, but as for books, i read mostly paper ones. This is mainly because i don't live in the countries whose books i read. Region restrictions on purchasing, incompatible/secret/proprietary formats and digital restrictions management really dampen my enthusiasm for ebooks.

[xg4bx]

Maybe 5% ebook at most, the novelty has pretty much worn off for me.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Maybe 5% ebook at most, the novelty has pretty much worn off for me.

Novelty ...it's the future

[wawasteele]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Novelty ...it's the future

[danskmacabre]

About 90% ebooks.
I buy the occasional pbook at 2nd hand bookstores or carboot sales.
Having bought a brand new pbook for years as far as I remember.

[GlenBarrington]

I will occasionally read a pbook if my wife (who won't read an ebook) buys something and recommends it. but I never buy anything but ebooks for personal use.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Maybe 5% ebook at most, the novelty has pretty much worn off for me.

In 2006-2007, it was a novelty, for people who were satisfied to read Gutenberg files (whose quality is not unquestionable), non-mainstream novels, or crappy pirated OCR-stuff.

That started to change when Amazon got into this game, and in 2010, we saw a veritable explosion of available books, both high-quality free to low-cost PD material, and mainstream novels.

Now in 2013, everything I ever wanted is available as an ebook, save for a few, very old titles that'll probably be never made into an ebook. (I can't actually find new or second hand paper versions on Amazon. I expect the books to be out of print.)

eBooks are here to stay, especially if the industry drops DRM and takes care about backward compatibility (read old formats on new devices) and forward compatibility (provide a reliable way to convert old formats into new formats for new devices).

If a format survives for 25 years (starting with EPUB, today), one could get by an entire life with 2-3 formats, only converting twice: EPUB2->EPUB3->EPUB4, or EPUB2->EPUB3, and EPUB2->EPUB4.

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

In 2006-2007, it was a novelty, for people who were satisfied to read Gutenberg files (whose quality is not unquestionable), non-mainstream novels, or crappy pirated OCR-stuff.

That started to change when Amazon got into this game, and in 2010, we saw a veritable explosion of available books, both high-quality free to low-cost PD material, and mainstream novels.

That pretty much mirrors my ereading experience. I started reading Baen books on a PDA, but I was still preferentially reading paper (in fact, I bought paper copies of several Baen books that I liked). I bought a Kindle two years ago and now rarely touch a paper book.

[Lemurion]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

Maybe 5% ebook at most, the novelty has pretty much worn off for me.

I think the key here is the word "novelty." Speaking for myself, ebooks are anything but a novelty. They have almost completely replaced paperbacks for me because they're much easier to read.

They're a better solution for my reading needs, so I read electronically whenever possible.

I'm sure I'd go back to paper almost entirely if I found them a novelty, too.

[xg4bx]

I'd see ebooks as less of a novelty/use them more often if I actually saved any money doing so. If there's only a couple dollar difference I'd much rather have a physical item. It's nifty technology but I really only use it for things that I can only get in ebook form.