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While I always felt that this was inevitable, I think this went much faster than what I would have anticipated. I guess the advantages of ebooks (immediate ava
by pilif 16y ago
While I always felt that this was inevitable, I think this went much faster than what I would have anticipated.
I guess the advantages of ebooks (immediate availability, much easier purchase process) have helped to convert people more quickly and made the converts buy more books in general (certainly happened to me).
Now let's hope that this success is seen by other industries too (Console Gaming, Movies) where they would still do everything possible to have you buy physical media.
- rst 16y agoWell, the transition isn't over yet. Amazon is comparing their own sales of paperbacks to their sales of Kindle books. But Amazon's share of the ebook market is a lot larger than their share of the paperback market. The industry as a whole is still selling substantially more paperbacks than ebooks. Or at least they were, as of fourth quarter last year.
- patrickgzill 16y agoExactly, as well, the book market is the combination of hardcover + paperback, so the comparison is lacking in that feature as well.
- loire280 16y agoIn July they announced that ebook sales had outpaced hardcover sales, so while sales probably haven't exceeded paperback + hardcover sales, it's certainly on pace to do so soon.
- loire280 16y agoIn the article they say that paperback sales are still growing. It almost looks like ebooks are increasing the overall demand for books and are cannibalizing print books less than expected -- though without the actual sales data we can't be sure. Of course, the brick-and-mortar book stores have been closing a lot of stores recently, which is another explanation for continuing increased paperback demand.