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.'"

Comments

What?

[Antisyzygy]

I thought E-books were by definition not Printed Books.

Re:What?

[RedWizzard]

If there are two possible meanings and one of them makes no sense then I think it is safe to assume that the other meaning is the intended one.

Re:What?

[Idiomatick]

There is an important difference. The figure you come up with is wrong. You can interpret it two ways:

E-books have 6% the sales that printed books have.
E-books make up 6% of book sales.

The first way is the option you came up with but it results in a different figure than reality.

If 1000 books total were sold then your interpretation would mean that 57 were e-books, 943 printed. By the other interpretation it would mean that 60 were e-books, 940 printed.

The discrepancy is more obvious if you change 6% to 100%. In the first view you are saying e-book sales equal printed sales, the second view you are saying that e-book sales are the only books sold.

eBook pricing

[jmlowes]

Ebooks will not be able to beat out paper books until prices come down. People are cheap and don't want to spend more for an eBook than the mass market paperback version. Drop eBook prices and watch them take off.

Re:eBook pricing

[Bieeanda]

Lower prices, and a decent reader for less than a hundred bucks. It's a lot easier to rationalize buying books at ten bucks a shot, than it is to get them in a cheaper electronic format and plunk down for a perceptibly expensive socket to read them with.

Re:eBook pricing

[shri]

>> When this occurred I went from buying multiple books a month to torrenting them
At what point do you get that sense of entitlement that you're allowed to pirate content? If you cant afford it, move on.

I agree, but

[OrangeTide]

It is difficult to argue with the meteoric rise in ebook popularity. I'm an ebook insider, and I still buy mostly physical books. But customers really are demanding ebook version of many books. And pretending that the trend towards ebooks doesn't exist is unrealistic. I might start and stop in fits but I think the writing is on the wall (or display).

Re:price

[airfoobar]

The very reason ebook prices are so high is because publishers won't let Amazon drop them further, as that would cannibalise their book sales in which they get much larger margins.

But, I doubt ebooks will ever replace books completely (at least in the foreseeable future). Books will be around a lot longer than CDs, DVDs, BDs, and many other such media.

Wrong title

[guyminuslife]

The title should be, "Holy crap, an entire 6% of books sold are eBooks."

The vast majority of the reading public doesn't own an ebook reader. The vast majority of people say things like, "I like the feel of a paper book, I wouldn't want to read a novel on my computer." The fact that, despite the relative novelty of the medium, and endemic resistance to ebooks, they've already captured a sizeable percentage of the venerable book market says quite a bit about the future. And frankly I'm surprised.

Re:As a Kindle Owner

[Tragek]

And I have to add, nor do I want them to kill the book. I love my books, I love owning them, I love reading paper books. But e-books have a super leg up when it comes to portability. I can carry the three books and the newspaper I'm reading in 8 ounces, or I can carry a pound and a half of paper.

Five star reviews are mostly bogus.

[AnonymousClown]

Millions of people are already reading on Kindles and Kindle is the #1 bestselling item on Amazon.com for two years running. It's also the most-wished-for, most-gifted, and has the most 5-star reviews of any product on Amazon.com.

Let me start with this; I knew someone who was close to an author (she will go unnamed) and whenever the author published a book, I was always encouraged to go up to Amazon and write a review.

I'm trying to find the original article, but a year ago Dow Jones reported that online reviews are inflated - people are way too nice.

In my experience with my own purchases, five star reviews are horribly misleading and inflated. And many times, I think they're written by shills. I now go to the 1 star reviews first (ignore the user errors and the folks who didn't like the shipping) and go up the ratings and ignore the fives. Apparently, some shills are writing 4 star reviews. Fortunately, the shills are kind of easy to spot - I'll leave that up to you figure it out - I don't want to make my buying harder than it is.

DRM

[Adrian Lopez]

I'd love to buy some e-books, but I don't want any of the DRM restrictions they come with. I can't sell an e-book online once I've read it, I can't give it away to a friend, I can't check out an e-book from the public library unless the publisher allows it, and often I can only copy my e-books onto a limited number of my own devices. While I expect e-books will someday become the standard for book publishers, I don't want to be part of that future unless and until these DRM issues are resolved. Publishers have little motivation to do so, which means I'll likely remain a technological dinosaur with respect to books and will never own a Kindle or whatever device has replaced it in the future.

Re:DRM

[Un pobre guey]

The problem is that you're not enough of a sucker. The fashionistas ("early-adopters") will latch onto the latest gadget no matter what it is, how much it costs, or how many of their existing rights need to be sacrificed. iTunes is popular even though you have limited copying abilities, you have to make your own backups (carefully), you can't lend the tracks legally or easily, they are generally more expensive per track than a traditional CD, you end up not getting minor works by the artist because you only bought the hit single, etc. etc. With eBooks your books can be altered behind your back and even deleted without your knowledge or authorization. Some people are more than willing to give it all up just to have the latest cool toy.

Imagine, 50 years from now, a kid goes up to the attic and sees a Kindle with a cracked screen, broken navigation keys, and a dead battery. It is junk. Imagine the same kid in the attic uncovering boxes full of books, dozens of them, with pictures, diagrams, stories, plans, photos, etc. Which is the better outcome?

Re:DRM

[Un pobre guey]

I think you are overly optimistic. Remember, the vignette is set 50 years in the future. The books belong(ed) to the kid's grandparents or even a more distant relative or friend. The electronic versions are most likely not loaded onto any device being used in the kid's house because the owner is long gone. The eBooks would be forgotten in some long-inactive Amazon account. If Amazon has a policy to delete the accounts of dead people after X years, then the kid won't even have that. Try 100 years later if you like. No doubt there will be many circumstances where the vignette does not fit, but digital data gets locked away deeper and harder the more time passes and the more technology changes. Have you accessed any 20 year old floppy disks lately? Do you still have access to a 5 1/4" drive? An 8" drive? Can you access cassettes from an old Apple II or an old Sinclair 2068?

No surprise with DRM

[syousef]

Lots of factors here. I know I won't buy a book while it's tied to a machine or even several machines let alone the installation of the operating system on a machine. I know I'm not the only one. I suspect that's a huge factor. It isn't reasonable that if I lose or damage my reader, my entire library is wiped out. Is it any wonder that if people are asleep reading in bed or reading in the bath or on the toilet that they don't want to risk an expensive device AND their entire library whereas risking a single paperback or hardback book is acceptable? Imagine rolling over in bed and killing not only your poor reader but $5000 in books. Stuff that for a joke.

Re:Is it just me?

[nomadic]

I agree with you -- which is why I have a kindle and do most of my pleasure reading on that. Could never read on a smartphone or laptop like so many slashdotters urge people to do here, I look at enough glowing squares at work, don't need to do it at home.

Re:price

[airfoobar]

a $10 ebook nets them about as much profit as a $26 hardcover

That doesn't come as a surprise. The paperback version of a book is often cheaper than the ebook!

Don't forget 1984 and Animal Farm

[unjedai]

With a paper book, no one is going to take it from you unless you get mugged, and then, what kind of mugger takes your books? Maybe I'll start spending money on ebooks when I'm guaranteed they're really mine. But that will never happen.

Re:price

[morari]

I also own a Nook. I've been very happy with it, but I've always been a heavy reader. That said, I do believe that ebook prices are outrageous. I don't think anyone would really argue that they aren't. The publishers need to wake up, lest they find themselves in the same boat that the music industry did when Napster blew up.

Re:price

[Cassius Corodes]

For me there are two categories of books - "average" books that I like, but not incredibly, that I get as ebooks, and there are those that I really treasure that I get as hard-covers. It must be something about the physical nature of books that ebooks just dont do for me. Admittedly a part of me is also always preparing for the post-apocalyptic scenario where there is no power - you dont see e-books giving you a 2% increase in skills.

Re:price

[BLKMGK]

I did it for all of Harry Potter and then nothing else for years - and yes I owned multiple hard and soft copies of that series. Then earlier this year prices went through the roof and some books were no longer available anymore! I was reading a book+ a week and traveling so like I did with music I turned elsewhere. Music I now get from Amazon for my iPhone, not encumbered and a decent price. When books return to being reasonable I will probably do the same. These guys really are being dumb, thankfully some of the authors are a little brighter. I wish more of them had tip jars....

Re:Or maybe they are using hollywood accounting.

[orin]

Your book has likely been pirated. A lot of technical books are and odds on you are answering technical queries from people that hadn't actually bothered to purchase your book.