Amazon reports e-books have outsold hardcovers

It probably does have to do with a lot of people getting iPads, but presumably, they will continue to buy digital editions, instead of "real" books.

Personally, I have made it to the point where owning physical media seems ridiculous to me, in most cases. It is a waste of materials and when I die, all that shit will just end up in a dump. Not to mention it takes up a lot of room.

I don't think it will devalue first-editions, in fact, it might actually raise the value of new first editions, since it is safe to assume that going forward fewer copies of them will be printed.

If you like to collect them, and have them on a shelf, buy a real copy. But for me, I'm sick of having hundreds of pounds of books.

I have a ton of books and graphic novels I am about to get rid of and am about to begin greatly thinning out my 1200+ CD collection. Over the last year, I have cut my DVD collection down to about 1/3 of it's largest size.

E-books are going to give this whole generation eye-cancer and glaucoma, just like smoking and drinking gave all our parents emphysema and liver sclerosis. Our kids and grand-kids will frown upon this like we frown upon drugs.

They said the same thing about television and video games.

Plus, you have devices like the Kindle and Nook that are visibly no different than reading a book.

I don't buy hardcovers anyway. I don't know why, but I just like the feel of a paperback better, so I always wait for paperback editions.

I think a big reason why e-books are outselling hardcovers is because e-books are for the hardcore book reader. The casual reader is less likely to invest in an ebook reader and they're also less likely to purchase a first edition hardback. And, as mentioned, the millions of iPads/Kindles/Nooks that have sold over the past couple of months probably contributed to a lot of sales. Like how a lot of video games get sold when a new console comes out.

It seems like with electronic copies of everything, one little error can erase everything. It doesn't feel like i have a real copy. I don't trust technology.

it always seemed like a scam to make people who wanted to read a book when it first came out pay more than they really should.

Aren't most hardcovers, when they first come out, only like 12-15 bucks? Seems like they are, then, after a month or two, they jack them back up to the cover price and you're stuck with that till the paperback comes out.

iBooks, is technically on an open-format, compared to Kindle which is proprietary to Amazon. However, iBooks still has DRM that is more restrictive than Kindle. The benefit here for iBooks is that, if Apple decided to leave the book market and discontinue the iBooks reader, they could simply unlock the books you bought and you could read them in any number of alternative software.

True, but sometimes amazon fucks up. One time all the books I said I owned and all the books that I bought from them disappeared. I really liked the fact that I had everything on there with ratings. It came back a day later, but still. I can see that happening with the books.

Reading on the IPad seems to me like it would be virtually impossible outside or near any kind of a window, can anyone confirm or deny that is this the case? I mean, there are things you can do with a book that you probably don't want to do with an expensive piece of technology, like throwing a book in your bag to read on the beach.

I'd be interested to know if hardcover sales have been declining over the past few years anyway (I suspect they have) but I suppose they're not going to tell us those figures.

I suppose so, so really unless you're buying the hardcover in the first week or so you're probably getting ripped off.

I just read an article about this and I guess what struck me is that many publishers are also pushing for e-books. Sounds weird, eh? What I understand is that it costs a publisher approximately $3.25 (u.s.d) per hardcover to make/ship, etc. and 0.50 to digitize, send,etc. an e-book.
I don't have an e-reader yet myself, but it seems to be the way we'll be buying/reading the majority of books soon enough.
I kind of like curling up with a book though, feeling the pages and bending it out of shape. The whole e-reader thing makes me a little sad.

it's simply not the same experience. i don't think tangible books will become extinct though. but maybe they should start thinking about selling them cheaper. maybe major publishers could open up warehouses or something and cut out the middle man. now that would be interesting.

"hey, babe, i'm just gonna head out to the penguin warehouse. want anything?"

amazing.

it makes sense that someplace like amazon would sell more ebooks than regular ones. no offense intended to the service they provide, but i dont use amazon as a bookseller, nor do any of the people i know. discounting that, though, since i cant speak for everyone out there, amazon is probably selling more ebooks because they're the people who sell kindle to the masses.

i have never purchased a digital copy of a book, or a CD (well, one time for my dad) but i think the quality of the digital imitation is unacceptable

i buy plenty of books online. sometimes amazon. mostly from abe.com. but only because it's plenty hard to get some titles here. i have one lovely little indie bookstore that i go to and buy loads of aussie and local stuff.

ebooks can suck a fuck.

I haven't bought a book anywhere but amazon in probably 5+ years. And most of the people I know regularly get their books from them. My buddy just got 6 or so books from them last week alone.

I also don't buy physical media anymore, unless I absolutely have to. There is no quality difference between digital and physical media except perceived. In fact, my ebooks can do more than a "real" book can. There is no reason to buy CDs anymore, because if I did I would just rip them to a digital format then play them back through my iPod or HTPC anyhow.

This article I recently came across basically sums up my feelings for all physical media
http://www.thefilmtalk.com/2010/07/27/7-reasons-youre-irrationally-cling...

And, I get the satisfaction that I made a minor difference on the environment.

Fortunately for people like you, you'll continue to have a choice for some time. But eventually, I suspect books will be like music and a lot of it won't come out in a physical format.

but most music still comes out in both digital and physical forms. some bands are even still pressing vinyl.

and yes, there is a sound quaity difference in MP3s.

Also, a great thing about digital media, as a consumer is, that there is no reason that a publisher can't decide to offer heavy discounts to increase sales.

Look at STEAM for a good example of this. It is not uncommon for them to discount PC games as much as 90% off for a short period of time. Not only do they see huge sales from this, it also doesn't cost them anything. Whereas with physical media, there is always a set cost of production that you can't sell below.

What Valve has found is that with insane STEAM deals, they actually make more revenue. Take for instance this article on the topic http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2009/08/software-pricing-are-we-doing-i...

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell announced during a DICE keynote today that last weekend's half-price sale of Left 4 Dead resulted in a 3000% increase in sales of the game, posting overall sales (in dollar amount) that beat the title's original launch performance.

Left 4 Dead was a successful game on it's own. The fact that they could sell it for 50% off and make that much at it says a lot about digital media. People will buy it because it is a great deal, who might not have bought it before.

The massive Steam holiday sale was also a big win for Valve and its partners. The following holiday sales data was released, showing the sales breakdown organized by price reduction:

10% sale = 35% increase in sales (real dollars, not units shipped)
25% sale = 245% increase in sales
50% sale = 320% increase in sales
75% sale = 1470% increase in sales

Take a peek at the "top selling" games on Steam. The one thing they do differently than most other retailers is they arrange those charts by revenue. When a game is on sale for $5 and is #1 on the sales chart, it is moving a hell of a lot of copies.

This is the big benefit of digital distribution. Once the publisher covers their original investment, they can open up the doors to get as many extra sales as they can. This great increases your exposure and has the potential to increase your future new products.

There are a lot of authors I've never read who I would consider reading for $2. And who knows, for $2 I might get hooked and then end up spending $10 on a new book of theirs.

If done properly, digital distribution is win-win for the consumer and the publisher, IMO. Take for instance Cult-favorite Will Christopher Baer. I can get Kiss Me, Judas for $2.56 IMMEDIATELY. As a fan, if I wanted to convince you to read it, I think I just made an easy sale.

Think about that for a minute. $2.56 for a book that a friend has told you is really good and you don't even have to go somewhere to get it or wait for it to arrive. I can't think of a reason to not click the "buy" button.

you sell it well. i'll give you that, Kirk.

Additionally, mp3 isn't the only format. iTunes offers Apple Lossless as a download option that is the exact same quality as a CD. And most other musicians offer their downloads in both mp3 and flac. NIN is a good example of this.

As for the sound quality, every piece of research I've seen regarding the topic is that over 320kbps the difference in sound quality is imperceptible to the human ear. I used to sell high-end AV solutions, the kind of stuff where people drop $20,000 on a PAIR of speakers. If someone didn't know that they were hearing digital media, they couldn't tell the difference.

Vinyl is another story. The argument for it's recent success is really about people who want to hold something, or like the big art. It is an extremely niche market and not only do the bulk of the people who buy that stuff not have a turntable, those who do don't have gear anywhere near the quality to gain the theoretical benefit.

I asked myself "Why?" and I couldn't answer the question. At one point I could argue that it was stuff that I watched a lot, but at some point that was no longer true.

So, I started getting rid of my DVDs. I listed a bunch on swapadvd.com to earn points to trade up for Blu-Rays. Blu-Ray costs 2 DVDs per trade so those that I listed I would end up getting only half back. I'm only getting what I consider to be the best of movies in my collection. All my other DVDs I've been selling or giving away to friends. I'm down to about 75 and would like to get it to around 50 or so.

I amassed a collection of 1200 CDs before, roughly 4 years ago, I stopped buying any more. They are all in plastic tubs since all the music is infinity more accessible on my PC. I have begun the process of cataloging them and intend to sell or trade most of them off. I figure I can probably get that down to 200-300 that I will keep simply because of sentimental reasons or because they are rare. Even then, they will remain unseen in tubs.

I trade most of my video games (xbox ps3) on goozex.com I'll buy a new game that I really want, but everything else I'll trade for. In fact, I've never bought a PS3 game.

My comic and book collection is now in my sights. Because of the physical size, I'm trying to figure out how to send out a lot of that stuff. For instance, I have the first 12 trades of Fables and 8 or so related books. So roughly 20 trades in the collection. I'm trying to find someone who wants all of them. It's just too difficult to get rid of those one at a time. I'll keep the very best, for instance the 5 books in the hardbound Absolute Sandman collection. But when I'm all done I imagine I'll have a fraction of my original collection.

For me, I just got to a point where having all this stuff just seems silly. Seriously, look at your media collection and think about how much of it you will never even open again. IMO, there is no reason to have any of that.

again for the cheap seats:

how much do you want for that Fables stuff, Kirk?

I love paperbacks!

I don't yet buy digital copies of books for the simple reason that I am too paranoid to want the existence of a master list of all the things I read and study.

But I'll agree with Matt. You really sell it, Kirk.