On the Media - Bookish

[ZodWallop]

On the Media, a radio show/podcast I listen to, just did an episode about the book industry. On the Media is an hour long NPR show made up of smaller stories. For this episode, all the stories are book related.

Give it a listen: On the Media - Bookish

Here's the episode description:

In October, a court ruled in favor of the Department of Justice and blocked the merging of two publishing giants: Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster. On this week's On the Media, hear what readers will lose if conglomerates further monopolize the market.

Plus, it turns out readers do not want to curl up with a good ebook.

1. Alexandra Alter, reporter at the New York Times, on how the booming publishing industry is wrestling with supply chain nightmares and more to meet reader demand.
2. Katy Waldman, writer at The New Yorker, explains what's at stake in the DOJ v. Penguin Random House case. Listen.
3. Margot Boyer-Dry, freelance culture writer, on why book covers are looking more and more similar, blobs and all. Listen.
4. John B. Thompson, Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, on how Amazon changed the book market for good, and why the appeal of the print book persists.

It's funny. They talk about how ebooks have not taken over, but most of the first story shows the advantages to everyone (except people wanting to impress others) of ebooks.

[JSWolf]

eBooks would have taken over if it wasn't for Apple and it's idea to try to take down Amazon.

[tomsem]

Obviously they never bothered to interview any of us here.

Where do they get the idea that true readers don't like ebooks? And how do they know people actually read the print books they sell? I may not read many of the ebooks I buy, but I read more than ever thanks to the many advantages they confer.

Pew Research might be the only organization that does regular surveys of digital vs print usage, but it's not clear phone surveys can be trusted any more, particularly when sample size is only 1500 people. They don't say how many calls they made to get 1500 to pick up, or how they determine those people are 'representative' of the population as a whole. They're doing their best, I suppose.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-read-e-books/

Anyway, thanks for the mention. I used to listen to OTM regularly but had to cut back on podcasts as I no longer have 10+ hours of commuting every week to consume them.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

eBooks would have taken over if it wasn't for Apple and it's idea to try to take down Amazon.

It's more complicated than that. Apple was never going to replicate the success of iTunes, which made the iPod a success. We've discussed this before.

Originally Posted by tomsem

Obviously they never bothered to interview any of us here.

Where do they get the idea that true readers don't like ebooks? …

Pew Research might be the only organization that does regular surveys of digital vs print usage, but it's not clear phone surveys can be trusted any more, particularly when sample size is only 1500 people. They don't say how many calls they made to get 1500 to pick up, or how they determine those people are 'representative' of the population as a whole. They're doing their best, I suppose.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...-read-e-books/

Serious readers are more likely to use an ereader or ebook app when they discover it. My dad was a literary snob but read on a Kindle for about the last ten years of his life and loved it.
At least 16 people in the family now have eink ereaders from age 7 to 70 approx.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tomsem

I used to listen to OTM regularly but had to cut back on podcasts as I no longer have 10+ hours of commuting every week to consume them.

Have you hecked when it is on the radio in your area? Maybe it is at a convenient time.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Have you hecked when it is on the radio in your area? Maybe it is at a convenient time.

Might be, I just don't ever listen to radio.

[cfrizz]

From what I gathered from that program is only genre readers like ebooks and I guess they are not considered serious readers since what they read are really not considered serious books.

Guess what? I couldn't care less! I read what I like, and I'm giving my hard-earned money to the writers whose books I like.

[DiapDealer]

The phrase "serious readers" should really be retired (or at least renamed). Its use rarely seems to convey its intended meaning, and typically only angers those who get left off of the "serious" bus.

If we're talking volume, then I'd suggest "hardcore" or "heavy" readers (and conversely, "casual" or "lighter" readers). And if it's being used to talk about those who read what some might consider more highbrow or difficult, I'd suggest don't. The distinction is rarely helpful and almost never relevant.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Where do they get the idea that true readers don't like ebooks?

Well, you need to take 'true' out of there. That's just going to lead you down the 'no true Scotsman' road.

They are going based of book sales, paper vs. digital.

And how do they know people actually read the print books they sell?

For a publisher, does it matter? If tomorrow you founded tomsem's Olde Publishing House, I'd venture to guess you'd rather publish a book that sells a million copies and isn't read instead of a work of true literary genius that sells a dozen copies to a few hardcore readers.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

From what I gathered from that program is only genre readers like ebooks and I guess they are not considered serious readers since what they read are really not considered serious books.

That guy did come off as a total snob, didn't he?

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That guy did come off as a total snob, didn't he?

Yup, which put me off of the whole damn program. He made genre readers sound like a bunch of bottomless pits consuming unimportant books with little value. After all they are only written by Midlist writers who turned to self-publishing their genre books since they aren't worth the all-important Big 5 publishers' time.

So, the snobbery continues. If you can't make an impartial presentation, then don't bother making one at all.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

He made genre readers sound like a bunch of bottomless pits consuming unimportant books with little value. After all they are only written by Midlist writers who turned to self-publishing their genre books since they aren't worth the all-important Big 5 publishers' time.

That's the part that made me wonder. Given that:

1. genre readers are a bunch of bottomless pits consuming unimportant books, and
2. they are only written by Midlist writers who turned to self-publishing

That should imply that there are a lot of ebooks being sold that fall outside their sales figures.

It does seem like many of the readers that are purchasing multiple books a year read ebooks.

I don't doubt that print is still the big seller. But when I see reports of falling ebook sales. I suspect that it's the Big 5's book sales that are falling as small publisher and indie sales rise.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

That guy did come off as a total snob, didn't he?

He's locked in his ivory tower, he cannot help it.

He seems unaware that you can give ebooks as gifts, and probably has never read an entire ebook in his life.

But IMO, books have never been a safe gift. It's not enough to know that someone loves to read, and who can presume to know another's preferences in reading? And just because I love a book, it's not likely that other people will have the same response. It's too personal and contingent.

Curiously, on Amazon, one of his books has two listings for the Kindle edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8K4756 <- $54.00

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LU0HKG <- $11.99

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by tomsem

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8K4756 <- $54.00

Textbook

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LU0HKG <- $11.99

Regular mouthbreathing slob

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by tomsem

He's locked in his ivory tower, he cannot help it.

Curiously, on Amazon, one of his books has two listings for the Kindle edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F8K4756 <- $54.00

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B006LU0HKG <- $11.99

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Textbook

Regular mouthbreathing slob

As near as I can tell, amazon doesn't sell the paper versions of the textbook edition, which are supposedly 3 pages longer than the edition for the great unwashed. Those must be 3 very valuable pages.