Hey! I'd love to start a discussion here :)
If you went back to 2011 and told a publisher that ebook growth would grind to a halt by 2016, they’d never believe you. What happened? Why did everybody get it so wrong?
I'd love to hear your thoughts!
@bentossell totally agree that people read books way less often than other forms of media, but if you were right, that'd be a reason why books are in decline generally, right? Turns out, overall book sales are pretty stable.
Source: http://publishers.org/news/us-pu...
The thing that's in decline is specifically *ebook* sales relative to print sales.
Source: http://www.digitalbookworld.com/...
@bentossell Totally - it's like, because a book is such a big time commitment and you make the decision to buy one so rarely, the convenience factor of ebooks is minimized. It's like the opposite of social media, where the units of content are so small that convenience is everything.
Also agree - ebooks aren't giftable. Makes a big difference.
@bentossell And nobody's really figured out the social aspect either. It's easy to share a Spotify/YouTube link, but books become popular on a longer timescale than either.
@bentossell@nbashaw I think part of what happened (at least for me) is that ebooks sit in an awkward place somewhere between blog posts/articles and full-length books. It's like trying to appropriate the quick-digest dynamic of blog/article reading and apply it to an inherently much longer format. (This was something I tried in high school; was never as productive as I thought it would be haha).
I think that ebooks still have potential, but they need to somehow carve out their own identity. They are not blog posts, nor are they enjoyable in the same way that reading a print book is for me. Their power lies in their accessibility and democratization of thought; that's what their focus should be. How this can ultimately be achieved I think is still up for debate, but I do think that enterprising minds should find a way to give the ebook its own dynamic.
Prices didn't fall and subscription services didn't gain traction (unlike, say, music or video)
The experience isn't significantly better either — few people carry more than one book at a time, everyone carried more than one CD.
I may be a bit late to this discussion and I do agree with most of what has been said although you should not judge the e-book success or failure on 1 year drop. Beside the New York Times' article about the falling of e-books sales was biased and it focused about the registered e-books and not the self published ones. I prefer hard copies to soft ones when it comes to books but thanks to e-books I can have multiple ones on my smart phone and read them everywhere whether on the bus or at home or on my browser (if I am on my PC). Furthermore I tend to read more than one book at once (I know it is not something we are advised to do but what can I do I love reading) mainly because sometimes I would like to read a fantasy novel, in the afternoon I would like to read so self help book, in the evening I may want to read a religious book or a business one. This makes e-books really practical since we have them all stored in the same place. One of the big hurdle concerning e-books is their prices. I am pretty sure it has been done by publishing houses who do not want to see this medium to take the edge over the common books and I don't see any point on spending so much for an e-book since you don't have to print any document so it should be far less expensive that it is now. Anyway I believe if we want e-books to do better the publishers and writers should really use the full potential the digital platform provides and make it more social . Is nice to see other people interested on this particular subject.
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