E-book sales down

[darylbrayman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Even if sales of dedicated Readers decline, lots of people read eBooks on a tablet or smartphone.

The other side of this is that of course at some point sales of any product such as an ereader have to decline or steady out. Between my wife and I we have a Kobo, Mini, Glo, Aura and Aura H2O. Unless something amazing comes along I'm good for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't say the market is saturated but there has to come a point where the spike in sales tops out.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by darylbrayman

The other side of this is that of course at some point sales of any product such as an ereader have to decline or steady out. Between my wife and I we have a Kobo, Mini, Glo, Aura and Aura H2O. Unless something amazing comes along I'm good for the foreseeable future. I wouldn't say the market is saturated but there has to come a point where the spike in sales tops out.

A lot of truth there. Eventually, improvements become incremental rather than exponential and isn't quite the incentive to upgrade. I do most of my reading on iPads now. I have a sony PRS-T2 for backpacking trips. I suspect that the next leap up will have more to do with software than hardware.

[conan50]

When fewer new devices are being bought, it would seem natural that fewer ebooks are also being bought. There is probably saturation all around. Most people have devices now, and have filled them up with ebooks. Tablet sales are falling, and phablets are becoming the "one device to rule them all". E-ink devices have nothing new to brag about, and prices may be as low as they will ever go. I don't see anything new on the horizon to improve ebook sales, yet music streaming, video streaming, gaming, other sorts of entertainment are becoming less expensive and competing for our time.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by conan50

When fewer new devices are being bought, it would seem natural that fewer ebooks are also being bought. There is probably saturation all around. Most people have devices now, and have filled them up with ebooks. Tablet sales are falling, and phablets are becoming the "one device to rule them all". E-ink devices have nothing new to brag about, and prices may be as low as they will ever go. I don't see anything new on the horizon to improve ebook sales, yet music streaming, video streaming, gaming, other sorts of entertainment are becoming less expensive and competing for our time.

One thing to keep in mind is that audiobook sales have been skyrocketing over the last 5 years. In this multi-tasking world, many people like to be able to listen to a book while doing other things. I know that my audiobook buying has increased quite a bit since I started buying them some 10 years ago. Audiobooks cost about what a hardback cost, so that's a significant revenue stream for authors.

[darryl]

Personally I think Audiobooks have the chance to thrive in the short to medium term only. In the longer term, text to speech will probably kill them. Already, I find listening to a book with an appropriate "voice" on Ivona tts to be quite satisfactory. Not perfect, but acceptable. This being the case, I am not at all inclined to pay hard cover prices for an audiobook. Quite apart from other considerations I read far too much for this to be affordable.

[AnemicOak]

While many of the Ivona voices are leaps above where TTS was earlier in its life TTS still has a long way to go before it can come close to an actual professionally read audiobook IMO.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by darryl

Personally I think Audiobooks have the chance to thrive in the short to medium term only. In the longer term, text to speech will probably kill them. Already, I find listening to a book with an appropriate "voice" on Ivona tts to be quite satisfactory.

Not in any sort of foreseeable future, at least for most of us.
Audio books are not merely "read," they are performed.
TTS may be perfect for many sorts of work, but for immersion in a narrative, TTS will not replace audiobooks until TTS and CGI also completely replace live actors in all roles, and by then the ruling machines will not be interested in entertaining us slaves.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

While many of the Ivona voices are leaps above where TTS was earlier in its life TTS still has a long way to go before it can come close to an actual professionally read audiobook IMO.

Amen to that. Audiobooks have come a long way since I started listening to them 10 years ago. We have gone from some reader reading like he was simply reading it aloud, to professional voice actors who use different voices for each character. It's like the difference between listening to your 8th grade English teacher reading Hamlet verse watching a top flight professional actor play Hamlet.

[disconnected]

A lot of Amazon's ebooks have an option to add the audiobook version (either when you buy the ebook or at a later time) for a pretty low price. Sync works across versions.

I haven't bought any because I can't keep my mind from wandering when I try to listen to audio books.

[B-Dizzle]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

One thing to keep in mind is that audiobook sales have been skyrocketing over the last 5 years. In this multi-tasking world, many people like to be able to listen to a book while doing other things. I know that my audiobook buying has increased quite a bit since I started buying them some 10 years ago. Audiobooks cost about what a hardback cost, so that's a significant revenue stream for authors.

I cam here to say pretty much the same thing. The article/publishing numbers don't seem to take this market segment into consideration. I have several hundred audiobooks and those are books, with a few exceptions, I never bought, print or paper.

Here's a decent (basic) article with a few good points about the interest by businesses in the segment:

http://www.publishingtechnology.com/...ks-for-growth/

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by B-Dizzle

I cam here to say pretty much the same thing. The article/publishing numbers don't seem to take this market segment into consideration. I have several hundred audiobooks and those are books, with a few exceptions, I never bought, print or paper.

Here's a decent (basic) article with a few good points about the interest by businesses in the segment:

http://www.publishingtechnology.com/...ks-for-growth/

Thanks for the link. Interesting.

As a long time audibook listener (I actually started with cd's way back when), I would say that it's going to be very hard for someone to make an inroad into audible. Audible allows you to listen via both iTunes and their own audible app. If it's like ebooks and everyone requires their own app, then I think it will be pretty hard to get customers. I do think that a subscription service might be more successful in audiobooks than it is in ebooks.

Of course, I could very well be wrong there. It could be that the audiobook market has a dynamic like the movie streaming market where Amazon, Apple, Netflix and the assorted cable companies all have managed to grab a piece of the market and establish a niche. Apple, Amazon and the cable companies have individual rentals while netflix has monthly subscriptions. It could be that people will be fine using multiple apps.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

As a long time audibook listener (I actually started with cd's way back when), I would say that it's going to be very hard for someone to make an inroad into audible.

I'd tend to agree. Downpour is a good service and everything is DRM-free MP3 (maybe watermarked?) which is nice, but as decent a service as it is they don't have the depth of catalog Audible does and with the number of Audible Studios books now it'd be tough unless Audible/Amazon starts making those available to other services. They might as they do make Brilliance Audio (owned by Amazon) titles available to Downpour.

[Katsunami]

What about LibriVox?

I've encountered it now and then, but I have no experience with it.

[gweeks]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

What about LibriVox?

I've encountered it now and then, but I have no experience with it.

Public domain only. Narrator quality varies from professional to not very good. Most are pretty good. All volunteer and uses U.S. copyright to determine public domain.

I've been getting audiobooks for years now by buying a paper copy, scanning it and getting it added to Project Gutenberg via pgdp.net and suggesting at librivox that I'd like to hear it. The most recent one was First Lensman.

Greg

[danskmacabre]

We have 3 ereaders (various kobo ereaders) in our house, all a minimum of 3 years old and all working perfectly well.
We also have 4 tablets of various ages as well, which are also used as ereaders, as well as light browsing, email etc.
Plus 4 smartphones which could be used as an ereaders if we wanted.
So we're not in the market for a new ereader in any form for some years.

As to ebooks. I generally get ebooks via the humble bundle offers and also from places like project Gutenberg.
I almost never buy ebooks or pbooks from the large companies, (with a couple of exceptions for authors I particularly like).
The only printed books I buy are tabletop Roleplaying game books and that's often from POD via drivethrurpg or places like that, so the main booksellers won't see my business.
Although I often buy these in PDF format as well, again a sale which won't be seen from the main booksellers.

The same goes for PC games, I mostly get these from humble Bundles or from the various Steam sales where the prices are massively discounted. so Bricks and mortar games stores never see my money anymore.
Mostly I get Indie PC games as well, as they are more interesting for me and the big PC games are often very expensive and have very intrusive DRM on them.