Ebook Sales Get Flushed Down The Toilet
September 15, 2013
Digital books are supposed to replace the dead tree book, but according to the Rough Type blog in the post, “The Flattening Of eBook Sales” says they are do not doing too well. Nicholas Carr, the author, noted at the beginning of 2013 that ebook sales would follow the trend of 2012: decline sales. He pulls data from the Association of American Publishers that state eBook sales only grew 5% in the first 2013 quarter. Adult ebook sales were only up 13.6% and children sales were down 30.1%, partially due to there not being a big book a la The Hunger Games.
The digital book revolution is losing the pressure to chug along and many of the reasons that Carr lists are true. Some types of books are better suited in print:
“We may be discovering that e-books are well suited to some types of books (like genre fiction) but not well suited to other types (like nonfiction and literary fiction) and are well suited to certain reading situations (plane trips) but less well suited to others (lying on the couch at home). The e-book may turn out to be more a complement to the printed book, as audio books have long been, rather than an outright substitute.”
There is also that any Americans have no interest in the format, e-readers are slowing in sales when up against a tablet, and the price difference between a paper book and an ebook is not that much. Do you want my opinion? Staring at a computer screen makes me dislike going home to read a book on my tablet. I like the tactile difference with a printed book and also it does not require a battery, unless you count my imagination.
Whitney Grace, September 15, 2013
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