I always assumed ebooks would eventually rule the publishing world, but that the coup would be a largely bloodless one, accomplished far more slowly than the early (and rapid) growth of ebook sales suggested. At some point, I assumed, ebook sales would plateau as the supply of early adopters was exhausted, and growth would occur slowly.
Ebooks may not rule the world… for a little while.
I’m a blogger, so naturally, those conclusions aren’t based on data as much as a globalization of my own thoughts (yes, megalomania is setting in), so happily for me, the thought-provoking Nicholas Carr notes the slowing growth of ebook sales, and the return of some readers to print:
A lot of other data came out during the course of 2012 that also suggests that (a) the growth in e-book sales has slowed substantially and (b) print sales are holding up pretty well. At a conference in March, Bowker released market research showing that, even though just 20 percent of American web users have actually purchased an e-book, e-book sales growth has already “slowed dramatically” from the explosive levels of the last few years and is now settling down at an “incremental” rate.
There are, reports Bowker, signs of “some level of saturation” in the e-book market, and, strikingly, the heaviest buyers of e-books are now buying more, not fewer, printed books. The Association of American Publishers recently reported that annual growth in adult e-book sales dropped to 34 percent during the first half of 2012, a sharp falloff from the triple digit gains of the previous few years. As of August, e-book sales represented 21 percent of total sales of adult trade books. While e-book sales seem to be eating away at mass-market paperback sales, which have been falling at around a 20 percent annual clip, hardcover sales appear to be holding steady, increasing at about a 2 percent annual rate.
Disposable Convenience vs Fetish Objects
Books I’m likely going to read once are always digital; there’s no used copy cluttering up my shelves or looking for a new home. This typically includes genre categories like sci-fi and
Some books — those I anticipate having legs — are bought in print. I won’t experience DRM or format issues down the line, and here comes the biggie: If I really like it, I can give it to a friend or relative, thereby converting them to the cause/writer/series.
(Sub-thought: I wonder if the inability to pass along a rights-managed ebook will hurt new authors in the long run, resulting in an “authorial consolidation” similar to the corporate consolidation we’re seeing in so many industries.)
That said, I’m more likely to read a book if it’s in digital form, and like most readers, I’ve largely abandoned my dedicated ereader for a tablet. My “to-read” list is about 50 titles long, and most of the titles that seem stuck on the list are piled up beside the nightstand.
The ebook vs print book meme hasn’t exactly generated a lot of heated discussion, but then, book people almost never resort to name calling (if you feel compelled to call me a philistine for my support of ebooks, feel free to do so in the comments section).
Keep writing (and reading), Tom Chandler.
I think an extremely important factor affecting eBook sales is being ignored: We’re in a resession. Sure, eBooks often cost less than regular books, but that’s once you’ve already purchased an eReader, and these days 100$ is a LOT of money for many people, esspecially if they’re just casual readers who may only buy a couple novels a year.
Kelly Paradise(Quote) (Reply)
Some of the main reasons why e-books have not taken off as big as expected is as the first comment suggests, because we have been in a recession. I would assume that as the prices of e-book readers are lowered then the majority of people that read a lot will switch to them, probably within the next 2 years.
Steve Porter(Quote) (Reply)
The price of an ereader is definitely a barrier, though I’d suggest they’re becoming a dead issue. Multifunction tablet sales continue to climb (if you’ve flown lately you’ve seen a few bazillion of the things), and they’re probably the future of ebook reading.
After all, buying an ereader is a barrier, but reading books on a tablet you bought for other uses (email, Netflix, etc) seems like a bargain.
TC(Quote) (Reply)
Hey Tom,
I’m not convinced that the recession is the problem. Apple is doing quite well with its $300 iPods and $800 iPads, so $70 for an ereader is not out of reach for many households. (Not to mention the fact that you can read ebooks on both those devices as well as PCs, so the readers are already out there…)
I think the main barrier at the moment is the cost of the ebook itself. You’d assume that an ebook, being composed of absolutely no paper and having to be stored in absolutely no warehouses and being distributed for almost free would cost substantially less than a “real” book. As we’ve seen though, publishers have kept those prices up — in many cases, ebooks are actually more expensive than their real world cousins. I for one would consider purchasing an ebook over a real one if it were that much cheaper (or if the real one wasn’t available, as was the case for me this past fall…), but I wouldn’t pay more for it, or even the same price. I would feel ripped off, or worse, that the publisher (or bookstore, depending on my knowledge of the book industry) didn’t care enough to consider a new pricing structure for the ebook. I hate feeling taken advantage of, and I suspect that many people find that to be true.
There are several other barriers (which we’ve discussed before) but in my mind this is the biggest at the moment. Drop the price of ebooks significantly, and you’ll see faster adoption of the technology.
~Graham
Graham Strong(Quote) (Reply)
Tablets are selling like crazy, but I still think they haven’t reached enough households to become the universal book reader yet. And don’t forget that one iPad in a house probably isn’t enough if four family members are readers.
I think you’re right about the cost of ebooks, though I’d amend it to say the perceived value isn’t there. I can’t give most ebooks to someone else or re-sell them to a used bookstore, nor can I be sure I’ll be able to read the thing in a decade or two.
For me, that’s the real reason I’m reluctant to pay the same for an ebook I would for a trade paperback — especially when a used print copy of the same book is available for $0.50 plus an inflated shipping cost.
So dropping the price of ebooks would help, but as someone who might very well be playing in the book sales arena soon, how do you feel about getting a smaller piece of the pie? Naturally, the slides us into discussions about publisher value chains, cost structures, etc, which probably aren’t quite at home here.
TC(Quote) (Reply)
That’s just the thing — in theory, nobody should be getting a smaller piece of the pie (except of course paper makers, warehousers, and trucking companies…) Simply take the cost of physical book production out of the price of the “book”, and you get your ebook price. The publisher gets the same, and the writer gets the same. Of course, it may not work out that easily. There may be other business implications I don’t know. But it seems like straightforward math to me…
It’s interesting you use the word “perceived” as well. I think that does have a huge impact on the reader, psychologically speaking — at least it does for me. I’ve mused on this before: it’s a lot easier to pay $20 for a physical book because you see what you’re getting, you understand the paper and the printing and the binding that went into it (if not the shipping, warehousing, etc.) But the same $20 for what is essentially a Word file? A bunch of 0′s and 1′s strung together? Yes, I know intellectually that I’m paying for information (i.e. the story, in the case of a novel) and not the vehicle that information comes in (i.e. the physical/electronic book). It’s hard to feel that way though. Maybe because I can’t physically touch it. Maybe because it does feel like it should be free. (Enter Chris Anderson, Stage Right.)
It’s similar to the psychology between buying a CD and downloading a music album, though I think in terms of the book, the average person feels the disconnect from the physical object a little more intensely. After all, the music has always come out of a little black or silver box after you put the CD/cassette/record in. But reading an ebook is a totally different experience from the analog version.
So yeah, a lot of it is about the perceived value. But you and I are both in marketing — we know that in many ways, perceived value is all that really counts.
~Graham
PS – don’t get me started on DRM. It protects the distributors (Amazon, Kobo, etc.),not the publishers or writers.
Graham Strong(Quote) (Reply)
Lots of good points, and I’ll only add this one. For a lot of readers, I think there are some real control issues being raised.
After all, when we bought a printed book, we owned it, knew we would keep owning it until we lost it or gave it away, and never had to worry about losing the ability to read it (sans failing eyesight).
Contrast that with an ebook, which is controlled by someone else’s DRM software, may not be readable three decades from now (what if Barnes & Noble goes under?), and can’t be given away.
No one who built a library of VHS tapes and then replicated parts of that collection by purchasing DVDs can forget that spurt of anger when you have to buy a property that you already bought once.
The booksellers are doing nothing to alleviate anybody’s concern along these lines (instead they’re engaging in a space race that only strengthens those fears, and creating little walled gardens that are far from open), so maybe a slowdown in book sales is needed to prod the bastards in the right direction.
TC(Quote) (Reply)