E-books Outsell Hardcover at Amazon; Soon to Surpass Paperback

[Tharic-Nar]

In what might come as a surprise to no one, Amazon earlier this week announced that ebook sales on its site are outselling hardcovers, and it's expected that in the second quarter, they'll also outsell paperbacks. If you're not impressed by this, your opinion might change when I tell you that these figures were gained from actual purchases - free ebooks weren't weighed in.

You can read the rest of our post and discuss here.

 

[Kougar]

Definitely not a surprise!

Let's say I'm buying a new release... Option A, I can order the hardcover for $26 and wait 5 days to receive it. Option B I can order the ebook for $13 and have it instantly downloaded for reading. Buying hardcovers for half the cost and having it instantly available for reading just makes total sense, even without considering how green it is.

Not having to chop down trees, manufacture the paper, ship the paper to the printers, manufacture the books, then physically ship the books to stores across the US... as opposed to just a few seconds worth of electricity to buy, download, and read the book?

Power outages excluded of course... current hard cold is apparently causing a near overload condition for the Texas grids, causing officials to instigate their rolling blackout policy for 10-45 minutes per substation in several cities...

 

[Optix]

My wife is almost rabid while she waits on her Kobo! I can't say as I blame her for exactly the reasons mentioned above. No shipping time/no need to head to a store, instant access and dirt cheap!

 

[OriginalJoeCool]

What happens if everything is digitized using a particular format, and decades down the road, that format is no longer in use? We'll have no way to access everything we've saved. We need open formats, not crap that will fall out of use as soon as its creator company vanishes. Books last a long time. Electronic books could last a lot longer. We just need to make sure we will always be able to access them.

 

[Doomsday]

I still like the good old fashioned books! E-books are ok if i have an iPad or a tablet thingy!

 

[Kougar]

What happens if everything is digitized using a particular format, and decades down the road, that format is no longer in use? We'll have no way to access everything we've saved. We need open formats, not crap that will fall out of use as soon as its creator company vanishes. Books last a long time. Electronic books could last a lot longer. We just need to make sure we will always be able to access them.

Software is still software... every single ebook, and e-reader has programs that officially (or unofficially) convert between ebooks, PDFs, and even Word documents. Amazon has an application that will convert Kindle books for you, another exists for Barne's and Noble's nook book reader. To be honest I was concerned about this myself, but I'm not sure there are any ebook formats that are not convertible anymore.

Most of the dozen formats have software that will even allow reading directly on a PC, including Kindle's format.