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Poll Shows That 75% Prefer Printed Books To eBooks
Attila Dimedici writes "In a new Rasmussen poll, 75% of American adults would rather read a book in traditional print format than in an ebook format. Only 15% prefer the ebook format (the other 10% are undecided). The latter is a drop from the 23% that preferred the ebook format in Rasmussen's 2011 poll. In addition, more say they buy their books from a brick and mortar store than say they buy books online (35% from brick and mortar, 27% online). I suspect that the 27% who buy online buy more books, but these results are interesting and suggest that the brick and mortar bookstore is not necessarily doomed."
For casual reading, e-books are fine but for technical materials I prefer hard copy that way there's no fear that the distributor won't change their TOS and I wind up losing a ton of C++ reference material or my favorite books on Roman History.
Spoiler alert: If you're wondering about the Roman History part, the empire collapsed.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
You can have my dead tree media when you pry it from my cold dead hands. The only time I don't prefer printed books is when I have to move them.
I still prefer real books...
Real books have a smell that is usually pleasant, leather bound and hardcover books look nice on a shelf, and I can give and lend my real books with ease.
E-books are cheaper though so, if you read all the time I could see the appeal.
I like printed books; but, they don't match the convenience of electronic books. I carry an iPod touch and I read everywhere, waiting for a meal, waiting for the Doctor, waiting for the Dentist, waiting for the long query to finish. If I run through the current book, I buy another online. It doesn't matter that it is midnight or 2 a.m.. I have whole bookstores ready to serve me.
Now sitting down in front of the fireplace with that paper book is pleasant. I'm not waiting until Winter and enough spare time to do that. I'm addicted to electronic books and would not willingly go back.
I'd be interested to see the answers broken down by age. It may well be that most of the people who love paper books will be dead in 20 years.
I suspect there's also a "fake good" effect, in that people feel they ought to be supporting their local bookshop and therefore say that they do, even if, in fact, they buy a book a year in an airport and every other book on Amazon.
Personally, I really like paper, even for technical books, but all my colleagues look at me like I'm wearing sabre-toothed tiger skins and wielding a club.
Virtually serving coffee
I have the Kindle reader on my Android phone and my Android Tablet and collect lots of free ebooks on my favorite non-fiction topics when they are available through short-term promos. I also have a some ebooks I've actually paid for but my collection is well over 500 books at this point. When I travel, I take my phone and tablet with me so I can do some reading in the airport terminals, on the plane and in the hotel room. There's no way I could possibly take more than 1 or 2 dead-tree books on the road with me and I can't imagine a better way to read on the road.
.
When I buy an eBook, I do not own the book. In order to read the book, I have to hope that some DRM server somewhere will authorize the eBook reader to show me the book I want to read.
I have books on my book shelves that are over 50 years old, and I can still read them fine. Can the same be said about eBooks 50 years from now?
Maybe things are different now, maybe not.
Reading and Writing with Computers: A Framework for Explaining Differences in Performance
Most studies have found that reading from paper is faster than reading from computer screens. Muter, et al. [1982] showed that reading from TV screens took 25% longer than from paper, but produced roughly equal comprehension scores. Wright and Lickorish [1983] also found that paper was faster. Gould and Grischkowsky [1984] studied subjects performing an eight hour proof reading task. They found that work was more rapid on paper, with slightly higher quality than on personal computers. Our own experiments verified these results and extended them to positional memory and various alternate computer conditions.
(I was actually looking for something else this morning and stumbled across this, and the topic came up on Slashdot. Synchronicity?)
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Only buy 2 or 3 new books @ year. Library? 10-15 @ month.. Used? 3-5 @ month. Guess I'm cheap.
The ebook is a different medium and as Marshall McLuhan pointed out the medium is the message. That is the medium dictates how the message is best sent and interpreted. Ebooks can simulate a paper book but just taking a book best formatted for paper is often not going to work well when just stuffed into an ebook. Many times it is simple the diagrams and whatnot being the wrong size for the often smaller screen. But other times (as with a magazines) you want to flick through looking for an article that catches your attention. Some like paperbacks translate well to the kindle with its e-ink and simple page turning formula.
Then with ebooks there are potential advantages such as speed of downloading, massive weight reductions, easy logistics, etc.
So I would not condemn the ebook so much as we should condemn the near lack of innovation in taking advantage of this wonderful new medium. To me this would be like saying that TV was not an improvement over radio if all people had done with it was to film people reading radio plays.
If I had to guess ebook improvements would include the obvious such as interactivity and formatting changes. But other things such getting rid of a general purpose textbook covering many subjects at one level and changing it so that each subject is covered from beginning to end and you just move on to another subject when you reach the desired level.
75% of people must never travel for long periods of time or read voraciously. I go through at least 2 books a week and travel for months at a time.
Electronic Reading has transformed my life (and house) - I still have a few hundred books, but they are mostly older or 1st editions of things I think are special. Gone are the days of me purchasing stacks and stacks of crap paperbacks and immediately giving them away, selling them, or stashing them in the hopes that I can find a use for them.
Technical manuals, reference materials, these still have a place in print - but thats mostly because the applications we use to read our ebooks suck, as it can take longer to open up a search, type in what you think you're looking for, go through the links...a book can be flipped. And there is no searching of images by name.
Still, I'll take ebooks for 95% of my daily reading since 95% of my daily reading is not at home or work.
It depends on the book, and depends on what you need to do.
I find eBooks a proper pain if you need to go back and fourth between a select set of pages. Theres no convenient or easy way to 'glance' on one page and then quickly return. In fact, you normally can't return at all. You can setup bookmarks, but the process is much slower and clumsier than done with a traditional book. You also cannot scan pages anywhere near as quickly when using an eBook versus a traditional book - for when you need to find a section of text (or a table) of which you are not certain its exact name or placement in the book in question.
eBooks due to their portability do work well though if you mostly need access to a single or specific section(s), where jumps are small or non-existant, or for sequential reading.
For fictional literature, eBooks are convenient. For learning materials, they're often poor.
I always get a good chuckle out of those that insist gaming will go all-digital and never look back. It's a fad, plain and simple. People hopped on the e-book bandwagon because it was cool, hip, and trendy to whip out your Kindle in the coffee shop or on the train, but now that people have gotten to see all the downsides of having books but not really having books the shine has worn off and they're back to buying hardcopies.
The same will happen with games. Once the shine of digital-only gaming (especially in the console arena) wears off and people realized they're getting screwed by not having a disc the trend will reverse itself and those companies that refuse to offer games on disc will ultimately suffer.
Well, more specifically, Amazon did. With a Kindle book, I can read it on any device (Kindle preferred, of course; love its display), can access my books anywhere with an Internet connection, and can even put documents I want to read on my devices onto my Kindle/cloud/etc by e-mail. Their implementation is rock-solid, and their main device feels just like reading a book to me.
My wife is a reformed pack-rat. One of my primary clutter-forms is books. So for me getting a Kobo was a form of compromise - the clutter is now electronic, where it doesn't show around the house. I haven't gotten rid of my dead-tree stuff, and some of it I never will. But in the battle against creeping clutter, every bit helps.
One good point about the Kobo Glow - with the built-in light it's better for reading and less disruptive than external illumination for reading in bed or other dark places.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I've read lots and lots of books over time, and most of them have been paper format. I'm 35 and was a book worm for about the age of 8 until close to my 30's when I just got plowed over with responsibility. I'm picking up the habit again.
I prefer ebooks.
Unlike cheap paperbacks if I fail to hold the thing open right it doesn't snap shut and cause me to completely lose my place. I can buy all the ebooks I want, and when it comes time to move I don't have to give myself a hernia moving the collection. As I continue to collect ebooks I don't have to find more space on the book shelf for them, and I can keep them forever without just giving up my investment if I want to re-read it.
My house has been robbed (by a deputy sheriff no less) and flooded by the storm surge of Hurricane Ike. Yes I had books stolen when I was robbed and after the hurricane I literally used a shovel to move the pulpy volumes into the trash bags. Even if both of my competing supplier ebook readers get burned up as my home catches fire all of my ebooks will be back in my hands as soon as I buy new later model readers to replace my old ones.
I still do occasionally buy dead-tree books. Watchmen for obvious reasons, I have the Dark Tower series, both the hard back and Marvel versions for art reasons. I collected comics as a kid, but other than a few adult targeted ones like I just mentioned I'm not into that anymore, still I do look forward to color e-ink, even if it's only 16 color or something crappy like that for comic reasons.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Personally, I really like paper...
The thing is, you're not alone. Really most people prefer paper. It's just that there's such a large benefit to eBooks that technical people are inclined to tolerate eBooks over paper because of the convenience.
But even many people who are not dead in 20 years will like books - look at what kids are reading, although there are many reading books on tablets they also mostly read a lot of paper books. So it's not like reading on paper will be unknown to future generations, even now.
The only thing that may drive more people to electronic books is the rising cost of paper books...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I like both printed books and ebooks. They both have strengths and weaknesses, they complement each other rather than replace either in my view.
I like to have heavy to carry around technical books (DRM free) and vendor documentation on ebook reader. eBook also more convenient not causing problems to breathe compared to a 3000+ large page monster on you chest when you lay on couch, hammock or bed while reading. But then often reading experience on table or while sitting on good armchair with good lighting etc. often nothing comes near real printed book.
IMHO, eBook is great especially for short lived stuff, manuals that are updated few times a year with the product they describe and of course magazines, but printed books anything I expect to have more value over let's say 5 years.
I am one of the people who prefer physical books. Some of that is probably habit, I've been reading physical books a long time. But there are several other factors. For example, many on-line stores are hooked to a reader and DRM enforces that I get books for my reader from particular stores. With a physical book I can shop anywhere. Used stores, Amazon, the corner store a library... all of them have physical books without DRM I can buy any time and read anywhere without a specific device.
Ownership is nice too. A lot of my books were given to me, passed down over the past 50 years. It's a lot easier to pass along and borrow books than electronic documents protected by DRM.
Convenience is big too. My library has ebooks, but they require special software to read and can't be transferred to other devices. To get a library book in electronic form I need to download the proper software, place a hold on the book, download the book and hope it works with my reader (sometimes they don't). It's actually faster for me to walk to the library, find and check out a physical copy than it is for me to navigate the library's website and download all the required pieces.
I prefer ebooks to printed books, but only on my kindle paperwhite. Reading on a backlit display for more than a short amount of time causes me a headache and interferes with my sleep if I read before bed. I would go so far as to say that the act of reading on a paperwhite is a superior experience to reading on real paper (as far as my own two eyes go). As for the question of wether or not my ebook library will still be there in fifty years, we'll have to see, but I suspect we will be downloading books into our head by then anyway.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
If by butler, you mean the barbarians, not really, but they seem to get a lot of the blame.
For light reading I prefer ebooks. Also if I'm going to read on a plane or train (which is also pleasure reading - fiction or history) ebooks are the way to go due to the convenience. For professional reading it's all about the printed books. When I read for work I take lots of notes which is much easier and more clear in a paper copy. When I refer back to the book later I then have a summarized version of the material all ready. Notes / underlines are possible with ebooks but it's a bit cumbersome.
... don't read any books at all?
75% of American adults would rather read a book in traditional print format than in an ebook format.
suggest that the brick and mortar bookstore is not necessarily doomed."
Brick and mortar going out of business suggest otherwise.
a) some prefer to read paper but prefer to keep electronic
b) most of the rest buy paper books online -- saves a lot of time
There is much discussion about real vs. ebooks, but little about how you could have both formats. There are clearly benefits to real books (you own them) and digital books (search, portability, etc). What if you could have both for the price of print, or the price of print + $0.99 (or some other small incremental cost)? My company, BitLit (http://www.bitlit.ca) has developed a system and is working with publishers to make this happen.
They really should have asked the population whether they actually own an e-book reader. Lots of people don't, and would never buy one because they prefer print books. The thing is, I was in that same category myself, before I bought a Nook. I bought it for other things, not to read books on, but after I had it, I did some reading on it, and I was soon hooked. I really do like reading books on the e-reader instead, it's just more convenient.
Now, I'm a bibliophile and always will be. I won't give up my books, and I still buy paper books when I know it's something I want to keep, or I can get a good deal on the hard cover. What would be really nice if, when I plunk down $25 - $35 for a hardcover book, to have free access to the e-reader version, too. They do this now with music, why not books? Often I would rather read the book on my e-reader, but still have the hardcover for my library, but I don't want to pay an extra $10 for that privilege. I think they would sell a lot more books (and e-readers) if they did that.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Amazons numbers tells a very different story. Could it be that the tree-murdering-faction does not want to face reality?
I think I would prefer real books (something that I can just toss into a bag without worry if it's charged or going to get stolen), but, I'm dyslexic. Being able to change the text size so that I'm reading in small chunks makes me able to read much faster. The other benefits (saves space, able to buy a new book where ever I am) is just a bonus.
Did they ask? "Given no difference in price, which would you prefer?"
Because I buy e-books from new, indy authors, and enjoy the fact that I can get them for a buck or two. I wouldn't even consider them at ten bucks or more for printed versions. Some are crap, but many are surprisingly good. And some of these new authors are banging them out at two or three a year.
Yep, I'm sure there was a poll that 75% of people prefered vinyl to CDs (I can move the needle exactly where I want it instantly), CDs to mp3s (I like seeing the collection), DVDs to streaming ... Then stopped noticing how convenient the new way was and in 5 years the poll flipped without anyone noticing. I suspect it will be the same for ebooks. Just switched my 71 year old mom. She's never going back.
In 2009 I could buy most books I was interested on at a substantial discount over hardcover (kobo reader) in 2013 the price is often comparable and often higher while ownership rights are lower. Funnily enough I don't seem to be as satisfied with e-books as I used to be.
I've been purchasing e-books in the forms of PDF mostly, and when possible I do purchase their printed version, if it doesn't get too expensive. I do prefer to read from a printed book, but I'm slowly adapting to the ebook.
I wish there was a tablet designed for PDF which provide an 8.5 x 11 or similar format experience, that would totally switch me over, as long as I can manage and save my files and load them myself. I would invest in such a device.
If people used ink instead of reading on LCD then the % of people that prefer e-books will rise. Most people try reading on LCD, which is a dismal compromise at best.
That and if we had affordable full-sized color ink. Having this would take care of the books that you just need color for, and a larger viewing area. ( like technical manuals.. )
I used to be in that % that hated e-books, but once e-ink became available, most of my ( several thousand ) paper books got the boot. I will even suffer with LCD for those books that need color/size, until the above is available..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I see several advantages of both books and bookstores.
When I can I buy books from brick and mortar stores, for all of the reasons that I listed above. Yes I think it's important to support bookstores (even Barnes & Noble, though if they ditched nook, i'd like them better), but it's not something to do for it's own sake. Go real books!
I think they need to distinguish what eReaders people are using. Reading on an iPad and reading on a Kindle are not the same. Your Kindle doesn't lose battery power after 5 hours. I hate having to wait to read my books because my book is charging. That being said eBooks are 100x more convenient. They also help me reduce a lot of clutter from my life. Yes, books look pretty sitting on a shelf taking up space, but I don't need to get off on the awestruck look on my friends' faces when they come over and see my massive collection. I think a lot of people need their books to be conversation pieces... to have their friends come over and be like... oh man do you actually read Tolstoy?
I originally had all the concerns about DRM, eventually obsolete formats, inability to lend, not supporting local booksellers....but after getting an e-reader, they've pretty much all been trumped by one thing: I can set the book down and have the damn thing lay flat and readable no matter where I'm at in the book. No more trying to find something heavy to set on one side or the other of a hardcover until I'm within the middle 40%, no more setting a paperback facedown any time I want to use both hands at lunch. Almost all of my book-reading time these days seems to be while I'm out at lunch or dinner, so it's a big improvement for me. I think this feature also contributed to finally getting me to start going to the gym (at least occasionally), as I can still get some reading done there.
I've also enjoyed the space savings of not needing the physical books around, and the ability to purchase new books from home and have them immediately available, but lay-flat is the top reason why I frown a little any time I want a book and can't find it in e-book format.
Books-on-tape might be even more convenient for my situations, but the idea of being forced to read at someone else's pace just makes me shudder.
The harsh truth is, the experience of reading eBooks STILL basically sucks. 80% of that reason? They're too goddamn slow for random-access reading of technical books.
I thought Android-based readers would save us by now. I was wrong, due to a toxic combination of slow flash, large documents, and poorly-performing memory management, compounded by clock speeds that are too throttled when they need to be "balls to the wall 100% full-speed ahead".
Let's start with flash. Flash is fundamentally a slow, sequential-access media. It was optimized for saving things like video streams to sequential blocks, and reading them back for sequential playback. You CAN jump around, but the protocol overhead required to read four arbitrary bytes is STAGGERING compared to the protocol overhead required to read four sequential bytes (once you've pointed at the first one).
So, let's start with requirement #1 for a viable technical eBook reader: a real, honest to God SATA3 high-performance SSD. Not microSD, not conventional value-engineered flash. Real, honest to god SSD-type flash optimized for high-speed bulk AND random-access data transfer.
Now, let's move onto requirement #2: a shitload of RAM. Enough to keep most of the recent pages pre-rendered in RAM. Or, a GPU with proper 2D hardware acceleration. The fact is, OpenGL doesn't do jack for things like text-rendering. In some ways, it's actively harmful. Unfortunately, somewhere along the line between S3's 8xx and 9xx acceleration & ATI's Mach64, and today's OpenGL, the 2D acceleration that made Windows9x text-rendering smooth as glass on CPUs that were a quarter of a high-end Android phone's real speed all went away. In terms of 2D acceleration, we've basically gone back in time 20 years. A modern Android phone's GPU is the PC equivalent of a 3dfx strapped onto a Tseng ET4000 (non-w32).
Note to nVidia, Qualcomm, and everyone else: partner with Adobe, and give us hardware-accelerated text rendering, layout, and flow, so devices don't HAVE to pre-render megabytes of raw bitmap data for every page to get acceptable performance. This isn't some fringe wacky use case.The Android industry's obsessive focus on 3D performance to the complete oblivion of 2D is misguided. Chances are, 95% of the IP nVidia or Qualcomm need is ALREADY OUT THERE, and was getting etched into silicon for Laser printers and cheap Windows videocards TWENTY YEARS AGO. It's not a case of "it can't be done" or "we don't know how", it's a case of GPU manufacturers just being willfully indifferent to 2D acceleration because it doesn't sound as sexy as "3D".
(takes breath)
Anyway, for the short term, a good Android eBook-optimized device needs gigabytes of RAM, so it can keep page bitmaps pre-rendered for immediate re-display. Backed by a blisteringly-fast SSD, to store the REMAINDER of the book in pre-rendered form. Once we finally get proper 2D acceleration back after a 20 year absence so pages can be composed & updated in 1/60 second or less, the ram cache & SSD backing-store can be scaled back.But not one minute sooner.
E-ink needs better performance. Is there some fundamental reason why an e-ink page HAS to be tediously updated by slowly resetting, then carving away 1 single pixel at a time? Did the industry truly learn (or remember) NOTHING from the goddamn early 90s, when someone came up with the idea of doubling the performance of STN LCD displays by dividing the screen in half, and updating each half with a different controller? Then progressively upping the ante, dividing the screen into smaller and smaller chunks with their own controllers, until finally taking the final leap to TFT? Why CAN'T an e-ink page be divided electronically into 2 pieces, each of which has its own logic to clear and render the next page? Or 4? Or 8? or 32, 64, or more?
Before someone brings up 'power', give me a break. Arguing about power budgets and e-ink is like people who get worked into a froth because LEDs with halogen-like color rendering use a lot more power than LEDs
I just print my ebooks at work, usually.
It's not surprising when people don't like it when hundreds of years of fine typesetting tradition are given up. Most features of good typesetting have evolved for the purpose of enhancing readability. Ebooks are much less readable than real books. (To be fair, not too many books exemplify good typesetting. Particularly scientific books are sometimes absolutely horrible. Despite of what some LaTeX fans like to claim, it doesn't automatically produce good results. On the contrary, due to its suboptimal paragraph flow algorithms it takes a lot of tweaking in order to get some good results with Tex.)
If there was an ebook reader with a DIN A sized e-ink display and good PDF capabilities, I'd go for it, though. There is nothing inherently wrong with ebooks, it's the small readers and soulless ebook formats that suck.
...I like to read it on a e-book reader nowadays.
Here's the problem: hardback novels are big and unwieldy to carry around nowadays. For example, J. K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" novels from "Goblet of Fire" on are hard to hold even for an adult given the sheer size of the hardback editions. With the current Amazon Kindle e-book reader, I can hold many novels in a single reader, and the device is easy to hold in your hands.
These poll numbers might be skewed. Rasmussen is known for under-counting the cell-phone only demographic.
For me, reading a book is a journey through its pages.
Not in some metaphorical sense, but in a very literal, tactile, visual sense.
I associate the words in a book with their position on the page,
and the pages with their (approximate) position within the thickness of the book.
It helps me keep track of what I've read, and place words and passages in context of the overall book.
I never thought about any of this until I started reading eBooks and it wasn't there.
An eBook is just one long (long, long, very long) stream of words.
Some eBooks paginate the words for display, but that pagination is typically not stable:
revisit those words another time and they will likely appear on the screen in a different place.
And those pages--such as they are--have no apparent position within any larger structure.
This is OK for a dictionary or a reference manual, where I just look things up.
But for any serious work of non-fiction, it's horribly acontextual: the book just turns into word mush.
I haven't tried reading any fiction eBooks, so I don't know if they would fare any better.
Real books are nicer in many ways - you can flip through pages easier, which is helpful with tech. manuals etc. And when I buy a book, it's mine for as long as I want it - no paper-DRM.
An ebook is, however, a very convenient way of carrying lots of books around in one go. And if you get your fiction off somewhere like Project Gutenburg, and your tech books from O'Reilly, you have no DRM to worry about.
I have a Kindle and a Nexus 7. I use both for reading e-books. I never have, and never will, buy an ebook from Amazon, because I won't buy an ebook with DRM. But I have dozens of books that I often want to refer to in a device I can slip in a pocket and (when it's the Kindle) go for a two-week holiday with without needing to worry about recharging.
I'd take a print book over an ebook any day of the week. But I'd not be without the option of an ebook. As I illustrated in a blog post on the topic, the sheer number of books my Kindle allows me to take wherever I go makes it invaluable: http://geekblog.oneandoneis2.org/index.php/2012/07/11/books
So.. it has come to this
I like ebools. I don't like DRM, which is why I preferentially buy from publishers like Baen and Tor. I like brick and mortar bookstores. I'd like to browse in a bookstore, go to the cash, pay the money and have them put the corresponding ebok on my computer.
I'd like to read the books with open-source readers. This doesn't seem to be legally possible with DRMed ebooks, or any of the locked-down epaper devices. But if there were wider applicability for these open ereaders, we'd probably see quite a few on the free/libre market, and they's evolve to the point where they *were* good for mathematics and illustrated books.
-- hendrik
ebooks are very convenient. I can fit a thousand of them on my phone which I always have with me anyway, and I can download a new when whenever and wherever I want. Paper books are a better experience. They have a nice tactile interface and good optical properties, and they're easier to navigate. Ask me which I "prefer" and I'll say paper. That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes use ebooks. Consider laptops. No way I'd say I prefer a laptop to a desktop, but sometimes you're out and about.
if im going to pay the same price for an ebook as i will for a hard copy, i will always go for the hard copy, which isnt affected by any ToS, doubles as kindling for a fire, lasts nearly forever, wont go away when i reinstall windows, and is generally easier to read in bed. that being said, if the ebooks were priced how they SHOULD be priced, i would always go for an ebook.
1. You can take it to the beach (and not worry about getting sand in it)
2. You can read it in full sunlight
3. You can photocopy pages from a book
4. You can write in them, tear out pages, or cross out swear words so your children can read them (my school used to do this)
5. You can display them in your study to show off and look smart
6. They are more environmentally friendly then e-waste
7. You can take only one on a trip and not have your entire library list on displayed for anyone who uses your e-reader
8. They never need to be recharged
9. You can use them to level furniture in your house
10. You can kill bugs with them
Taking the rest of the comment as fact still does not support the last sentence. If 1) Walmart is selling all the new & best sellers (i.e. a huge % of the volume) at prices B&M bookstores can't compete with thus removing most selling profit and 2) Amazon continues to grow, then I think B&M will continue to shrink. College towns and small communities with bike paths, Whole Foods and million dollar homes may have a B&M but where else?
Actually, I think Moscow has a better claim to it.
As we all know, the Roman empire was split circa 400AD (1100AUC). The Eastern portion became the Byzantine Empire, which lasted essentially until 1200AD. By that point the Byzantine Empire was heavily connected to Eastern Orthodoxy, and in that role, at least, the Empire was succeeded by the Russians (Mehmed II, the Ottoman conqueror of Byzantium/Constantinople, tried to claim the title as well, but that didn't last much beyond his lifetime). Tsarist Russia fell to the Bolsheviks, who formed the Russian SFSR, which joined the USSR. When that eventually collapsed, we ended up with the Russian Federation we have today.
As for the Western half, that also ended up in Russia. The title laid dormant for a few centuries after the fall of Rome, until it was revived for Charlemagne and the Holy Roman Empire. That also eventually fell apart, until Otto the Great. While this territory never included Rome itself, it did include parts of Italy. In any case, the Empire was formally dissolved during the Napoleonic wars; however, both Austrians and Germans laid claim to being its successor state. In either case, those states ended up wrapped within Nazi Germany, which was conquered mostly by the Soviets in WW2.
So yep. All hail Caesar Putin I, Emperor of the Roman Empire (I think we're up to the Fourth or maybe Fifth Roman Empire by now, but I'll let him decide what he wants to call it).
I would be interested to see what percentage of people who prefer real books have ever actually read a whole book on an ebook reader. I would also be interested to see what would happen when you specified eInk vs any ebook reader, as spending hours staring at even a high quality LCD display produces significantly more eye strain than paper would, where as eInk is pretty much just a glossier version of paper. I would also be interested to see what would happen if they had been more specific, and stated reading novels, as the average eBook reader is designed to mimic a paperback, and is therefor unsuited to technical papers, most manuals, or full cover PDF's.
And my pound of cynicism for the day, I would be interested how many of the people who voted have actually read a whole book in the last 6 months.
I collect books, like dead tree, real paperback books. I have thousands, and I buy more every year. I still prefer to read most of my books on my Nook. There are things I miss about real books, the smell, the texture, etc... But the benefits of my Nook are enough to outweigh that.
US books sales were running about 80% hardcopy / 20% electronic in 2012 vs 85% / 15% in 2011 ...
Current numbers of up towards 25% e-book share seem completely reasonable
However, the growth rates have plummeted and seems that e-books may top out at less than 30% market over the next few years
The biggest surprise is that the "new-ness" of ebooks may be wearing off
I have 4,000 books, most of them hardbacks. I stopped watching television in 8th grade and have never owned a TV. I have two 27" iMacs. If I were to buy a kindle, I could have one book open at a time. I like to read 4 or 5 books at a time, reading a few chapters of one and then switching to another one. Sometimes I will encounter a particularly brilliant passage in a book and so I will leave the book on my desk open to that page for quick reference. It is, in effect, as if I have 4,000 screens. Many dozens of them can be open at the same time. My favorite place to read long-form works is in the bathtub. I just finished "Free Lunch" by David Cay Johnson about how the rich are ripping all of us off by getting the US government to underwrite them. Then I switched to "The Definitive Guide to CentOS". I have "War & Peace" open on my desk to a brilliant passage that never fails to inspire me as I work on my 12th novel. All of these activities would be impossible if I had one measly Kindle. The printed book is a technology that has never been bettered.
1. You obviously worry less about your paper books then I did.
2. Real eBook readers are eInk, which can be read in full sunlight just like paper. If it uses LCD, its not an eBook reader, its a Tablet, IMO.
3. You can strip DRM from ebooks and copy pages, and its usually no less illegal to do so, then it would be to photocopy a paper book.
4. People who write in and tear pages out of books horrify me, I can't respond to this!!
5. If I displayed all of my books in a study, it would have to be 1/3 the square footage of my entire house
6. If you read 3 books a year, sure, one ebook reader is more environmentally friendly then buying a new ebook reader every year. On the other hand I read over 500 books on my kindle before I bought my Nook, and I'm already over 350 on it, so no, its not even close to more environmentally friendly for me to buy every book as a real paperback.
7. With my Nook I can take 9 books with me on a trip, that way I don't run out!
8. It has to be recharged, once a month of heavy reading.
9. This horrify s me in ways I can not express!
10. Ew... just ew.
For reading, in bed, lights out, lying on my side in a comfortable position, I've found nothing better than a 4.3" smartphone (NOT an e-reader) mounted in a dock, sitting on the bed next to my pillow, with the screen orientation forced into portrait: this is the EFFING HOLY GRAIL for me for reading novels in perfect physical comfort.
I used to (sometimes) read ebooks sitting in a comfy chair in front of my desktop computer with a LARGE font (so I could lean back and read) -- but it was somewhat less than ideal for extended reading sessions.
I used to think I'd never give up paper novels... until I found the aforementioned method.
This poll doesn't agree with my own informal poll, in which almost nobody I know buys or reads paper books. The only person I can think of that does is my internet avoiding 80 year old father.
I've read over 5000 pages / "sections" on my iPhone for one "book" and would do it again before I'd carry around a paper book.
I'm in the "uses both" category. For light reading, I use eInk, and that's perfect for literary content. I can easily take my latest magazines from Weightless Books anywhere I go.
For technical matters, pdf has it all over eFormats. Why? We're used to a larger presentation window from paper. There's a body of cognitive research around how to use that space to improve learning and retention. Has anyone noticed the evolution in textbook layout over the past 50 years? It was full-page text with centred diagrams and headings back back when I was in U. Now textbooks are multicolumned and illustrated with both attentional and informational content.
I'm looking forward to a colour eReader with a reflective Letter/A4-sized screen whose weight increment from current Kindles and Nooks are completely attributable to screen size. Then if my title is available for it, I'll never purchase dead tree versions again.
Then YOU don't "have" that PDF. The content owner has the PDF, and the content owner decides (until they've gone bankrupt or lost interest) whether *they* trust your DRM system enough to allow it to display the contents to you (under their rules).
I'm really not trying to split hairs here, but if that PDF file has DRM, *it's not yours*. Don't kid yourself. And if your e-book display computer doesn't obey your wishes to retain its contents, again, *it's not yours*. You may have paid your good money for it (sucker!) but not in exchange for ownership of that object and that data file. And don't get stuck into Stockholm Syndrome "but I paid for it, and I'm not stupid, therefore you're wrong and this DRM'ed e-book reader with the DRM'ed PDF file is perfectly ok". I don't care what you do with your money, that's up to you. I just believe that if you think about things in incorrect categories, the truth is often obscured, as in this case, and the only solution to the odd paradoxes is to think in a different way. This is why I think it is very important to have legislation that forces such an E-book reader as you have to come with a warning label "Warning! not a general purpose computer".
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Plus, if you really take your ebook reader to the beach, it'll indeed break, which is good for the ebook industry.
DFRM - digital fu€king restrictions manipulation
3E51A207
There are many problems with ebooks that have nothing to do with the technology, but with the assinine marketing and "protection" of "content" that is going on with ebooks.
As people bought the readers, they found some new uses for it.
As they got used to it, the purchases increased and they started finding out that they really haven't, as far as the sellers are concerned, actually buying a damn thing.
And now the honeymoon is over, they're not liking it as much.
If you're going to be breaking the law, then why the hell pay money to do so?
Really.
those companies that refuse to offer games on disc will ultimately suffer.
Including companies that develop and self-publish bite-sized sub-100 MB budget games? I don't see the point of using an entire 7000-8000 MB DVD-ROM and all the attendant retail overhead for a 40 MB game.
Meanwhile, the "content provider" keeps insisting you've not actually bought the content, only a license to read the content.
Except in this case, you don't even get to just read the content on either device with the license. Apparently, invisibly, the clause "On this specific medium" was hidden in the EXTREMELY small print. Probably somewhere between the electrons on the paper.
actually i prefer e-books (Kindle, Nexus tablet) because paper books are kinda heavy. i have bad joints. holding heavy things causes my muscles to ache.
I'm a prolific user of ebooks, but I have one rule... I don't buy anything that's DRM. The file is mine to do with as I please. It has to be device agnostic or it's not interesting to me. So far I'm yet to find a book that isn't available in an open format.
...posts some real garbage, and this is evidence of it.
I vastly, vastly prefer e-books to printed books.
One simple reason:
CTRL-F
And not so slowly either. As more people are exposed to e-readers and ebooks, ebooks will gain in popularity. Especially when color e-ink screens become widely available. Don't get me wrong, I like printed books, but ebooks on an ereader (or tablet or smartphone) are much easier to cary around with you.
Brick and morter bookstores are dying. Not only due to ebooks but due to online retailers as well. As with many other items, books are less expensive from online retailers even with shipping costs.
Might have something to do with the fact that most ebooks (and particularly the reading software for same) totally suck! The Kindle reader is almost entirely devoid of features. Its bookmarking facility is a joke! Add to that the lack of real-world page numbers and instead you get numbers that go into their tens of thousands; I guess it's a word/character count or something, but you can't use that in a footnote reference! If they're going to give you this bizarre substitute for page numbers then they could at least put something in the interface that shows you the equivalent dead-tree-edition page number. It's the little things like this that totally turn me off. Even PDFs from reliable, DRM-free, publishers such as O'Reilly often have problems copying code samples - lately I've been getting bizarre Unicode private use characters! That's not very handy. Overall, I will only buy ebooks for technical tutorials, references, etc. Fiction and other non-technical-fiction has to be dead-tree!
I prefer tech books to be ebooks as you can quickly search them, but fiction, I prefer the actually hardcopy unless it is porn.
People hopped on the e-book bandwagon because it was cool, hip, and trendy to whip out your Kindle in the coffee shop or on the train, but now that people have gotten to see all the downsides of having books but not really having books the shine has worn off and they're back to buying hardcopies.
I got an eReader recently. I haven't bought any books for it, but I still can read all I probably want. And it is more convenient. I just use the local library to get the ebooks. The returns are hustle-free too.
On the other hand, I would only buy non-DRM ebooks, so maybe some O'Reilley books.
http://shop.oreilly.com/
and you know it
That sounds a bit presumptive. I understood "the shine of digital-only gaming (especially in the console arena)" to include demand for games that wouldn't be developed in the first place if there weren't a market for bite-sized games on download stores. Other Slashdot users have complained about the dominance of "snack" games over full-length "meal" games on Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and OUYA Store; I mistook your position for theirs. Please don't be tempted to confuse "mistaken" with "male genital".
I'm dating myself, but I still have my copy of Sedra & Smith's "Micro Electronic Circuits" from my days at the University of Toronto. It's 30 years later, but I still use it.
It turns out that electrons don't change their behaviour after a few decades, and people who are good at explaining are still good at explaining in writing after a few decades. I also found a Quantum Mechanics book written by some guy around 1950 in German (which I can barely read but I managed) whose name I sadly can't remember but made my mind clear and pass QM with flying colours.
I really don't know what my kids are going to do with their pdf's. I really don't. I guess they'll manage, but I can grab the dead tree thing and it still works, despite some mold on the edges.
Last I checked iCrap and Android devices aren't consoles (and yes, that includes the redheaded bastard child called Ouya). Or did you miss the "(especially in the console arena)" part? And these types of games were *never* available on disc to begin with, so how could they return to a medium on which they never once existed? Next time put your brain in drive and your mouth in park, not the other way around.
I know that a book I buy today will be handed over to my wife, kids, grandkids for generations ... if they want.
When I buy a license for an ebook, I can't be assured that it will work with my reader device in 6 months. The rules can change at any time. That sucks.
The only way I'd buy any ebook is without DRM of any sort involved where it can be read on **any** device that I choose suitable to the task. That isn't just the "brand-A" reader or only from "library-Z" provider. **Any** reader that I want so I can easily transfer the license to my wife, kids, grandkids, or resell it in 5, 10, 50, 200 yrs.
That is what ebooks lack today. They do not work "like a book."
RE: But please take you condescension and anger to another thread. I don't feel like being the target of it.
You must be new around here.
heh.
ironic captcha: foregone
If you stick to open, non DRM formats, there is no reason you can't read your books again, no matter the device you choose.
People have already done it with music in digital format, text is even easier. The epub format for example.
There are many ereaders without any sort of connectivity, no wifi or any other nonsense, just an usb cable and its recognized as a simple USB mass device (like a thumb drive), and some even take flash cards or such. Most of these can read the open formats perfectly.
The ereader is not an electronic book. It is an electronic LIBRARY. There is just no comparison. People often imagine themselves carrying a book, or the device... But the device is not a single book, it is tons of them, BUILDINGS of them. I mean, come on, a typical book is about 5mb, and the "pocket" ereader with 5" pearl white eink screen i use comes with 2gb of storage...
Backup? The same as with any other 2gb thumb drive.
Carrying more than 3 physical books is problematic, let alone thousands of them. You can now have the complete works ever written by somebody or from a subject. Also the device often allows you to search, just type the word or phrase and there it is!
Physical books can last a lot but they can also deteriorate, especially with public use and abuse; and, often works are never published again. With digital, nothing needs to be lost ever.
Remember, one of the oldest libraries was burnt down by American troops in Baghdad, the oldest known remaining human writings were lost forever and only digital pictures remain... You can go back in history to find again and again how libraries and writings of all forms were burnt down and lost.
Books are nice but fragile, and heavy, and impractical and time consuming to reproduce, and prone to idiots burning them. And in the rare situation you needed one, you can always print it back to deadtree format. So, various loads of trucks when you move, or a small and compact ereader?
The ereader might not be the answer for bookshops (unless they learn to sell books without DRM, like some did with mp3); but the age of libraries in the hands of everyone is already here.
Of course obsolete business models and copyright law might not stand it, but the fact won't change, the genie is out.
As for libraries, they have a limited number of copies, and limited working hours. IMO they should dedicate themselves to preserve physical books in controlled conditions and make sure there is a digital copy of everything, correct mistakes etc. People would no longer need a library card, just give everyone a reader with the whole thing, or at least a thumb drive or let people bring their own so they copy all they want to read at home.
Sooner than later all libraries should sync with each other, and people with them. There is no reason some have books others don't, at least not in digital form, yes, all languages, all subjects.
This is mundane compared to the stuff being done already with video and music.
Artix
Your Linux, your init.
An E-book can be read in many ways.
On a phone, computer, tablet or e-reader, for instance.
I prefer reading an ebook on an e-reader above all else, but the other ways to read it are way below a book.
Also, how many have actually tried reading on an e-reader (at least one whole book) amongst the once who answer?
Stupid survey.
I was one of those luddites, however I was recently away for 3 weeks, and burnt through the 3 books I took quickly. As I had an ipad mini, I downloaded the kindle app and bought a couple more books to give it a go.
Now I'm not so sure.
Aside from the problem on not being able to read on the plane during take off, approach and landing (about 30 minutes a flight, 120 flights a year, that's 60 hours of reading time lost), they're very convienient
I'm still buying dead trees out of principle, but when I read these types of books I'm happy to read an ebook too, but I treat it more like a library.
2. e-readers are perfect for this too.
3. If you're so inclined you can do this on an e-reader too.
6. The paper industry is notoriously dirty. If you get through a lot of newspapers and books you're better off buying an e-reader.
"3* Would you rather read a book in a traditional printed format or on an electronic book-reading device like a Kindle?"
Without any preconditions this question is pretty useless. Have these people tried an e-reader for a substantial amount of time? Are they heavy readers or just random people who might only ever read occasionally? Does the question include all the added conveniences of an e-reader or merely the visual aspect of reading?
For me personally there are definitely printed books which look better than e-readers, but there are also a great number of prints which look so terrible that I find it much more comfortable to read an electronic version.
I prefer hardcovers and trade paperbacks with high quality paper to ebooks. I prefer DRM-free ebooks to cheap paperbacks. I prefer even the nastiest paperback to an ebook with DRM. That said, ebooks travel better than high-quality books, so it's often worth having a second electronic copy for travel purposes.
Honestly, i have no idea why they did this survey. Surely sales figures speak for themselves?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/books/2013/05/15/e-book-sales/2159117/
"even as digital books remain the fastest-growing part of the market. They now account for about 20% of all book sales reported by publishers."
That pretty much matches what the survey has confirmed, and, sales figures is more reliable data after looking at the question formatting.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/econ_survey_questions/july_2013/questions_e_books_july_11_12_2013
Yes, I have a Kobo, bought at least partly because the company's long-term stance has been to allow ebooks of arbitrary provenance (but not necessarily DRM) on their devices. Books on their store are DRM-free when that's what the publisher wants. And although Calibre is great, you don't even need it to put books on a Kobo.
But I still can't experiment with free ebook-reading software on the Kobo. Despite using a Linux kernel and followint the GPL licencing rules, there still don't seem to be enough hardware and UI specs around for people really start porting free software to a kobo. The latest models seem no longer even to have a boot-from-sdcard feature.
I suspect that most other e-paper book readers are also hostile to user code, though.
But although a few welcome publishers are DRM-free, most of them, and thus most things that people want to read, are still DRM-bound. This limits the opportunities for truly free ereading software.
I'd say the science-fiction community is lucky to have publishers like Baen and Tor on-side.
-- hendrik
I come from Canada, and every time I go into any Chapters location the place is full and lineups are crazy long. There are 8-10 tills and one clerk, maybe two, running them (depending on location).
I usually go at least once a month, sometimes two-three times a month, since the store opened. I haven't seen people traffic slow down. I can't speculate if and when that will no longer be the case / observation. But the age group of those in-store are all over the place. It is not like I go there and the senior's center is overrunning the store; and one could then project that as soon as they 'die off' the store is doomed.
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I read eBooks almost exclusively. The space savings and convenience of always having your library with you is a very big perk to me, as I live in a 900 sq ft condo with my wife. Moving and travel are more pleasant. My parents are avid readers, and have several cases full of books in their house, and think the opposite - won't even consider an ereader. Once you've invested in a library, it is hard to accept a paradigm shift, and they'd actually need to renovate to convert the space to another use. It's also generational - as more people my age become the core book consumers, I believe the market will shift.
Some genres are challenged by publishers not releasing an eBook format (politics and current events is a big one for me), and pricing structures. I often struggle to justify the price of an eBook given the near elimination of distribution/physical production costs, and the price differential between a paper and ebook not appearing to pass much if any of the savings on to customers. I hope one day that ebooks become the primary method of selling, and as an alternative paper holdouts have the option of printing it themselves at cost, so consumers aren't paying for the current dual format system and all of the added costs.
But I hate storing them. My house is full of old books. It would probably explode if I bought any more. I can buy ebooks without adding to the pile. I can also read anything in my growing e-library, on the road on my iPhone. With books, I'm limited to what I can carry with me.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Generally an outlier, the media describes Rasmussen as conservative. And that's on a good day. Who else has polled how ebooks are perceived and used by the general public? Just it jive with this organization's?
I much prefer to read a real book, but when on-the-road for the company the e-reader can carry enough books to fill my off hours, without adding weight or bulk. As to who reads more, I have over 2000 books with one wall of the living room a floor to ceiling book case. I have seven smaller book cases in the basement with double shelve. About a third are hard cover. I find that I often run into novels only available in e form. Regrettably, It's likely I will never read those.
I have a special case. I have only one eye with low acuity and it is developing a cataract. I like e-books because I can control the zoom, that includes HTML and PDF.
I like e-books for tech, especially for coding, because I can cut and paste code directly into a file or interpreter. Having poor vision makes this easier than typing especially when I do not have the sources in an archive from the publisher.
Sheet music is possibly easier to read on a large display, but the page controls for most readers, especially for PDF are not optimized for this application. Following a recording with a full score is problematic at any useful resolution. Using piano music is easier. It is possible to read piano music at the music keyboard from a large display and the size is often better than for the printed original.