Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales In UK

twoheadedboy writes "Book lovers are increasingly turning to e-books, and in the UK Amazon has announced it now sells more e-books than physical copies on Amazon.co.uk. Kindle books surpassed sales of hardbacks in the UK back in May 2011 at a rate of two to one and now they have leapfrogged the combined totals of both hardbacks and paperbacks."

Comments

Can we get our rights back, please?

[wild_quinine]

Another vindication for technological progress, and another steely blow to the right of first sale.

It has become my preferred method of reading

[Shivetya]

having a Kindle touch, Kindle Fire, and even an iPad 2, I find myself reading almost all new books on the Kindle Touch. For two reasons, its so damn light and second because I can use it in full sun light.

For me nothing beats being able to read outside without having to worry about glare and portability. While I am still a fan of hard cover books, having shelves of them, I am more than happy to own an e-reader version of them. Too bad publishers don't help the trend and follow a similar model DVD publishers do, where you can get a digital version without your hard copy.

"Amazon sales" not "UK sales"

[1u3hr]

"Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales In UK"

Bullshit. The actual story is Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Print Sales ON AMAZON In UK.

Huge difference.

Re:But how many books are actually read?

[nospam007]

"Sure, more e-books are bought, but how many of those are read?"

You mean people put them on imaginary shelves so that it looks pretty?

Reading is sort of the point with e-books, their value as status symbols is nil, you can't impress people like with leather bound volumes, bought by the yard to decorate your condo.
You can't use them as paper weights nor use them to flatten dried flowers, you can't use them as door stoppers, you can't level old tables with them, you can't hide cash in them nor hollow them out to hide your stash.

I pasted a link below with other stuff you can't do with ebooks.

http://www.neatorama.com/2011/04/27/cool-non-literary-uses-for-books/

Re:"Amazon sales" not "UK sales"

[Shrike82]

Amazon is thought to have approximately 20% share in total book sales in 2011, so it may still be fairly indicative of the market as a whole.

Except brick-and-mortar stores don't really offer e-books, and Amazon is a skewed sample as they're pretty much the champion of digital book purveyance. So no, not fairly indicative at all I'd say.