Fightin' words!

[Katsunami]

Barryem has the right of it.

An e-reader brings a lot of new things to reading. Most of those things can be 'tacked on' to a paper book (using a reading light, having a dictionary on hand, etc...), while others can't (huge amount of books in a small space, large books weigh the same as small books, changing fonts).

There are other advantages to e-books he hasn't mentioned:
- Can be backed up, so you'll never lose your library (if you do it the right way: without DRM, and off-site)
- An e-book will never fall apart, even if you read it 50 times (although the images and covers will grow worse to look at as screen resolutions increase).

Personally, I think that publishers are missing a few points.

1. There was a huge e-book boom between 2010 and 2013, when all the well-known titles finally became available. I've replaced my -entire- paper library with e-book versions, except for books that are not yet available, or offer something as a paper version, such as illustrated editions. I think many people did this, and it created a huge spike in e-book buying. Nobody, including myself, would buy 500 paper books just because they are cheap (think: up to 90% Kobo coupons in those years). With e-books, I think many did, including me. So, everybody who -wants- to have a huge e-book library, already has one.

2. The casual 'read a single book a year on the beach' will never use an e-reader. The devices are too expensive to make it worthwhile.

3. In the Netherlands, the e-book market is indeed around 7-8%... if you take the sales of DUTCH e-books in DUTCH stores into account. But... those books are only bought by a small fraction of people, the ones who only read in Dutch. Everybody *I* know, who reads fantasy, science fiction, and other genre fiction that is originally written in English, buy e-books anywhere BUT in the Netherlands, except for Kobo Netherlands, maybe. So they are either not counted, or counted towards markets in other countries.

===

For me, print books with only words in them have become useless. An e-reader is much more convenient. The one place printed books still have are the ones that provide large, page-filling illustrations, such as the illustrated editions of LotR or The Silmarillion. (I'll probably be buying the new illustrated Harry Potter books as well, even though I've already have, and read, the normal e-books.)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by barryem

I think that's a fairly common attitude in the tech world, too. One of my complaints about reviews of tech is many are primarily concerned with what's new. They often give only a little mention of how good a product is at the things all such products do.

If it's not new it's not anything.

What really bothers me when we get a review of some Reader is that what's not reviewed properly is the reading experience. How good is the software? These are what's important. I can gather how good the hardware is from the specs. But what makes readers different (overall) is the software.

However, in this situation he's also completely wrong in saying that ebooks bring nothing new. They bring light. They bring lots of books in less space than print books need for each single book. They bring the ability to easily get your next book from any nearby Wifi or from anywhere in the case of my 3G Kindles. They bring a built-in dictionary. They bring text search. They bring adjustable fonts.

Another thing eBooks bring is the ability for some people to read where they would not otherwise be able to read.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Barryem has the right of it.

An e-reader brings a lot of new things to reading. Most of those things can be 'tacked on' to a paper book (using a reading light, having a dictionary on hand, etc...), while others can't (huge amount of books in a small space, large books weigh the same as small books, changing fonts).

There are other advantages to e-books he hasn't mentioned:
- Can be backed up, so you'll never lose your library (if you do it the right way: without DRM, and off-site)
- An e-book will never fall apart, even if you read it 50 times (although the images and covers will grow worse to look at as screen resolutions increase).

Personally, I think that publishers are missing a few points.

1. There was a huge e-book boom between 2010 and 2013, when all the well-known titles finally became available. I've replaced my -entire- paper library with e-book versions, except for books that are not yet available, or offer something as a paper version, such as illustrated editions. I think many people did this, and it created a huge spike in e-book buying. Nobody, including myself, would buy 500 paper books just because they are cheap (think: up to 90% Kobo coupons in those years). With e-books, I think many did, including me. So, everybody who -wants- to have a huge e-book library, already has one.

2. The casual 'read a single book a year on the beach' will never use an e-reader. The devices are too expensive to make it worthwhile.

3. In the Netherlands, the e-book market is indeed around 7-8%... if you take the sales of DUTCH e-books in DUTCH stores into account. But... those books are only bought by a small fraction of people, the ones who only read in Dutch. Everybody *I* know, who reads fantasy, science fiction, and other genre fiction that is originally written in English, buy e-books anywhere BUT in the Netherlands, except for Kobo Netherlands, maybe. So they are either not counted, or counted towards markets in other countries.

===

For me, print books with only words in them have become useless. An e-reader is much more convenient. The one place printed books still have are the ones that provide large, page-filling illustrations, such as the illustrated editions of LotR or The Silmarillion. (I'll probably be buying the new illustrated Harry Potter books as well, even though I've already have, and read, the normal e-books.)

Very good points, especially point 1.

I don't know that the attitude displayed in the original post is particularly common among the people doing the work in the publishing world. Remember when the CEO of Disney claimed that people who recorded TV shows and fast forwarded through commercials were stealing? Disney has since embraced the DVD and streaming world. One should never read too much into what one out of touch CEO says.