E-books didn’t kill print quite yet. | weekly comment

E-books didn’t kill print quite yet

September 24th, 2010, 10:29 am

In July Amazon announced that e-books outsold hardcover books by a ratio of almost two to one. Techblogs around the world took this as a hint that the printed book is losing it all and peaks in sales are nothing more than the death throws of a dying giant. Nielsen Bookscan painted a slightly different picture. Hardcover make up only around 23% of print book sales, the rest is from paperback. Based on Amazon’s figures, e-book sales would then only constitute about 6% of total book sales worldwide. And that’s just sales, not turnover or any profit to speak of. E-books are sold very cheap and according to The Internet Analyst Amazon was even losing money back in 2009 as they sold them cheaper than their wholesale price actually was. Yes, Amazon sold e-books with a loss!

I always suspected that the hype was little more than just that. It’s true that e-books have their advantages but these won’t be enough to kill the good old printed book within the next decade. No e-book reader can give you this unique feeling of touching, smelling and turning the pages of an old volume in a library. Hardcovers and paperbacks also don’t run out of juice in the middle of nowhere and not everyone can afford the price tag of an electronic reader, or is willing to. Even the notable MIT Technology Review blog agrees that the expectations might have been a bit exaggerated.

After all it seems we are not talking dying giants. It’s rather like a chronic cold for the print book industry: the symptoms won’t go away but it also isn’t lethal by far.

Stephan de Paly

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