eBook Sales Outpace Hardbacks

dptalia writes "Amazon announced that for every 100 hardback books they sell, 180 eBooks are sold. In addition, they've seen sales for Kindles triple since they lowered the price. But traditionalists shouldn't panic yet — paperbacks are still the king."

Comments

I hate the way paper feels.

[localman57]

I don't know about all this 'eReader' hub-bub, but personally, I miss the way parchment felt between your fingers. Yeah, I know everybody says the printing press brought literacy to the masses, but in my opinion, it's just another way for the Kings and Lords to control what us serfs read.

There was a time when you traveled from village to village meeting people and looking for new parchment you hadn't read before. Now, they print off 100 of something like it's no big deal, and hey, look, now everybody in the village is all up on the "bible" all of a sudden.

Re:I hate the way paper feels.

[PseudonymousBraveguy]

Oh, stop with your new-fangled parchment. How is the writing going to survive the aeons if it's not carved into stone?

Re:I hate the way paper feels.

[localman57]

Carved into stone? Are you mad? When we get driven from our lands by invading barbarians, what are you going to do? Load up the ol' cart with a few hundred tablets? Good luck.

That's why we use oral history. Sure, it eats up most of a kid's childhood teaching it to him, and he gets unhappy when we beat him for forgetting parts, but it's mobile. Plus, we can make as many copies as we want, just by speaking to other people. The StoneCarver's industry is just using this to make sure you have to pay them for every copy.

Re:I hate the way paper feels.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oral history"? You "evolved" simians sure think a lot of yourselves. Why do you think anybody two generations from now is going to care what you think? Us chimps, we know how it's done. If something's important, you pee on it, so everybody knows it's yours. End of story.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go groom bugs off of my mate.

Re:You cant hand an ebook to your friend...

[MBGMorden]

Guys, I'm not positive on this one, but I'm going to guess that maybe - just maybe - there's an easier way to crack an EBook's DRM than physically taking pictures of the screen (via scanner OR picture) from each page. That seems about as efficient as cracking your iPod's DRM by singing your friend the song yourself.