A historic shift
Online retailer Amazon
announced yesterday that sales of books for Kindle, its e-reader, jumped ahead
of hardcover sales in the second quarter of this year. Its press release states
that “Over the past three months, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com has sold, it has sold 143 Kindle
books.” Also, “Over the past month, for every 100 hardcover books Amazon.com
has sold, it has sold 180 Kindle books.” And, “Amazon has sold more than 3x as
many Kindle books in the first half of 2010 as in the first half of 2009.”
My
first thought was, “Really?” That’s a huge, historic shift in book-buying
habits, and I haven’t seen evidence of that in my own (admittedly limited)
experience as a shopper, traveler and bookstore browser, or among family, friends and colleagues. For example,
the last time I traveled by air, I noticed maybe two or three people with
Kindles and other reading devices—but saw many, many more with books (mostly paperbacks, true) in
hand. Another person on staff here reports a similar experience on her last flight. Are we just
missing the obvious?
Publishers
Weekly reported yesterday that “Five authors—Charlaine Harris, Stieg Larsson, Stephenie
Meyer, James Patterson and Nora Roberts—have each sold more than 500,000 Kindle
books, and Amazon said that of the 1.4 million e-books that Hachette said James
Patterson has sold, 867,881 were for the Kindle.”
And Claire
Cain Miller writes in The New York Times:
“Book
lovers mourning the demise of hardcover books with their heft and their musty
smell need a reality check, said Mike Shatzkin, founder and chief executive of
the Idea Logical Company, which advises book publishers on digital change.
‘This was a day that was going to come, a day that had to come,’ he said. He
predicts that within a decade, fewer than 25 percent of all books sold will be
print versions.”
Is
this really the beginning of the end for hardcovers? Are you embracing the age
of the e-book? Let us know what you think.
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dragonwand
wrote
re: An historic shift
on
Tue, Jul 20 2010 1:03 PM
I have bought very few hardcovers in my entire lifetime. They're too big and too heavy to be carried in a purse or briefcase. I don't yet own a Kindle or any other device specifically for reading. I read paperbacks at home and keep reading material stored on my net book and my Blackberry for times when I'm on the go. My net book works very well even in bed with the page rotated so I can hold it like a book, and my Blackberry is perfect for things like the wait in the doctor's office. Both these devices have multiple other uses. Personally, I think I'm ahead of the trend.
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Decades ago, Isaac Asimov wrote that human history shows that people will never give up an innovation that is convienient, no matter what problems it creates. Variations on the Kindle seem to be one of those innovations. I love books and own more than I can count, especially paperbacks, themselves once an innovation. Overall, it's the read plus the convience that count, and writers, publishers and we old dogs will adjust.
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Graycor
wrote
re: A historic shift
on
Sat, Aug 7 2010 8:46 PM
I have been waiting for this to come since the middle '60s. I even tried to make my own by using Super8 film, at that time, one frame at a time and viewing the pages on a viewer. Of course the viewer was not clear enough to read the image. I own the first Kindle, which I am giving to my daughter, because I just ordered the latest. Since obtaining the kindle I have purchased well over 400 books. What a delight it is to have several books available wherever I find myself. I like to read several books at once. It is the story, not the medium, that I read a book for.
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Graycor
wrote
re: A historic shift
on
Sat, Aug 7 2010 8:46 PM
I have been waiting for this to come since the middle '60s. I even tried to make my own by using Super8 film, at that time, one frame at a time and viewing the pages on a viewer. Of course the viewer was not clear enough to read the image. I own the first Kindle, which I am giving to my daughter, because I just ordered the latest. Since obtaining the kindle I have purchased well over 400 books. What a delight it is to have several books available wherever I find myself. I like to read several books at once. It is the story, not the medium, that I read a book for.
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