Slashdot Mirror
E-Books Are Only 6% of Printed Book Sales
An anonymous reader writes "MIT's technology blog argues that e-book sales represent 'only six pecent of the total market for new books.' It cites a business analysis which calculates that by mid-July, Amazon had sold 15.6 million hardcover books versus 22 million e-books, but with sales of about 48 million more paperback books. Amazon recently announced they sell 180 e-books for every 100 hardcover books, but when paperbacks are counted, e-books represent just 29.3% of all Amazon's book sales. And while Amazon holds about 19% of the book market, they currently represent 90% of all e-book sales — suggesting that e-books represent a tiny fraction of all print books sold. 'Many tech pundit wants books to die,' argues MIT's Christopher Mims, citing the head of Microsoft's ClearType team, who says 'I'd be glad to ditch thousands of paper- and hard-backed books from my bookshelves. I'd rather have them all on an iPad.' But while Nicholas Negroponte predicts the death of the book within five years, Mims argues that 'it's just as likely that as the ranks of the early adopters get saturated, adoption of e-books will slow.'"
Disgruntled literature students with no job prospects after 6 years of university (complete with masters, et al).
And converting all their books to ebooks, when they can't even afford a phone is going to make the problem even worse! Roving gangs of philosophy majors, terrorising honest people, breaking into homes, stealing and and all books they can get their hands on for the next "fix".
Amazon, you are an enabler, this is a terrible business model to work on.
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"If one cannot write clearly and concisely then they need not to be writing anything at all."
Hey you - yeah, you, in the hole - shall I drop another shovel down for you? That one looks worn out.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."