According to the founder of Waterstone's they are. I must say it sounds strange to me -- everybody I know who has switched to an e-reader was instantly hooked, and I'm talking about people who fervently swore nothing could ever replace hardcopy books.
Ebooks on the way out?
Jester David
Hero
As Umbran says, someone with ties to a large physical book chain might not be unbiased.
This speculation is all based on a dip in eBook sales and spike in hardcover sales. But the nun vers are kept back for hardcovers. They say how much Ebooks sold and the dip (800mil and 5%) and say his much hardcovers spiked (11%) but not the money. Without knowing the money from hardcovers it's hard to judge if the spike is greater or smaller than the dip.
This speculation is all based on a dip in eBook sales and spike in hardcover sales. But the nun vers are kept back for hardcovers. They say how much Ebooks sold and the dip (800mil and 5%) and say his much hardcovers spiked (11%) but not the money. Without knowing the money from hardcovers it's hard to judge if the spike is greater or smaller than the dip.
Viking Bastard
Adventurer
I have always considered ebooks to be the successors to paperbacks, not hardcovers. How are they fairing?
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
A 5% decline is hardly "on the way out." I expect all of the formats to continue to coexist for quite a while in various proportions.
If the market were truly free we might see more significant shifts, but since the current publishing model is still built around physical products and the big players are there, there's not a lot of incentive for them to level the playing field more.
If the market were truly free we might see more significant shifts, but since the current publishing model is still built around physical products and the big players are there, there's not a lot of incentive for them to level the playing field more.
I would expect that the mix could well vary year by year, depending on what are the big releases, and to what audiences those releases lean.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
Ebooks on the way out? Hardly. 5% may or may not be significant in the ebook market, but I don't think it's enough to say we are seeing the beginning of the end of ebooks.
Physical books will always have a place. They may not continue to be as mainstream as ebooks, but there are plenty of people that will continue to purchase them. Hell, I still sometimes buy physical books because I can get them for far less than an ebook. This generally happens with books I buy for entertainment purposes, but even some of the professional and school books I buy come out cheaper when I get the physical copy rather than the ebook version.
Not only that, but were the eBook versions of the hardcover released at the same time?
No surprise that hardcover books rose if Harry Potter #8 was only released in hardcover format and nopt also eBook....
That kind of thing would cause a spike.
EBook revenue likely dropped off in the US because of the antitrust lawsuits against some major publishers that were price fixing their eBooks.
Now they aren't selling for ridiculous prices. I doubt that quantity has dropped.
Also, people that bought a lot of eBooks now have a credit to use from the settlement. Mine equaled 4 new books. That's 4 books I didn't pay out of pocket for.
Now they aren't selling for ridiculous prices. I doubt that quantity has dropped.
Also, people that bought a lot of eBooks now have a credit to use from the settlement. Mine equaled 4 new books. That's 4 books I didn't pay out of pocket for.
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