E-Book Sales Soar as Traditional Book Sales Decline

[Gabriel1]

Agreed, ebooks are way more storable and for that reason I changed from paper. The problem with them is no electricity no reading. Long term may also be problematic, ebooks bought on iBooks can't be transferred to another device as far as I'm aware which locks you to Apple if you continue to use iBooks for your purchases.

The expense of ebooks over their paper counterparts, I believe, is down to publishers trying to protect their revenue and DRM issues. They're trying to dissuade you from buying them by making them more expensive, but that's my opinion.

I believe the iPad and the likes of the kindle are changing the way we store and read, the only problem as I've mentioned, is their reliance on a charged battery, for this reason I can't see them replacing paper altogether.

I doubt they would be trying to dissuade us from buying ebooks, the margin on an ebook against a similarly priced hard copy is massive, it is in their interests for us to by them at the best price (highest) they can sell them at.

The Archangel

 

[Gabriel1]

It depends on where you live.

For example in Germany, there is a very nasty little thing called 'book price control'. It was all worked out before the ebooks, but essentially what it does, is that it forces the book prices to be at a certain level and all same books, but in different medium need to have the same price. It would be illegal for a publishing house to offer an ebook for less than a paperback.

Luckily most English speaking countries have more lax book regulations.

Actually we had something similar here.....there was a row about it, i think because of the discount sellers.....can't remember how it was resolved.

The Archangel

 

[DontUnderstandMyIpad]

Agreed, ebooks are way more storable and for that reason I changed from paper. The problem with them is no electricity no reading. Long term may also be problematic, ebooks bought on iBooks can't be transferred to another device as far as I'm aware which locks you to Apple if you continue to use iBooks for your purchases.

I believe the iPad and the likes of the kindle are changing the way we store and read, the only problem as I've mentioned, is their reliance on a charged battery, for this reason I can't see them replacing paper altogether.

Kindles let's you read ebooks up to one month at a time without recharging. Mind you, this is when reading day and night, if you also count in sleep, they will last even longer.

It is Wifi and 3G that kills Kindle's batteries, not the reading.

You bring up a very tricky point regarding the long term reliability. Apple is u likely to open up iBooks, to iBooks apps will always have to be read on apple devices. For that reason do I only buy Kindle books, those can be read on any major desktop and mobile device, giving me the choice of where I want to read the ebook.

 

[DontUnderstandMyIpad]

Actually we had something similar here.....there was a row about it, i think because of the discount sellers.....can't remember how it was resolved.

The Archangel

Hhmmm.

My Kindle account is still linked to the US, perhaps that's why I have overlooked that detail, or it has already been resolved here in the UK.

 

[Hayles66]

If I really wanted a book badly enough, I probably would buy it no matter the price but luckily I have patience and wait for it to come down unless it's the Vampire Diaries, Sookie Stackhouse, or Twilight books. Bit of a theme going there but I assure you there are others. My mind has gone blank.

 

[Shihid]

I prefer e books bec papers are mostly made of wood

 

[Gazzaho]

But then, if you are talking electricity, paper books are reliant on that as well, and the way our world is going, fossil fuels will be gone and no-one has come up with a cheap way of producing electricity. I digress, sorry.

Paper books aren't reliant on electricity, the modern world is. Book printing goes back way before the reliance on electrical power to print them.

 

[Gabriel1]

Paper books aren't reliant on electricity, the modern world is. Book printing goes back way before the reliance on electrical power to print them.

But that is like saying cars aren't reliant on petrol because they used to be steam powered!

The Archangel

 

[Hayles66]

But that is like saying cars aren't reliant on petrol because they used to be steam powered!

The Archangel

Good one!

 

[Gazzaho]

But that is like saying cars aren't reliant on petrol because they used to be steam powered!

The Archangel

Here's one for you, a hypothetical scenario so to speak, it may be "OUT THERE" but no less relevant.

NASA have stated that in the next few years, between now and 2013 there will be a larger than usual Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun. Scientists worldwide are unsure what the effects of this may be, some suggest the effects could knock out electronic devices wholesale, anything containing wires will be affected. All machines reliant on electricity will become unusable, power stations will cease to function, not for weeks, months or even years, some say a decade or more as the infrastructure isn't in place globally to supply the parts needed for repair. We will in effect be knocked back into the dark ages.

This may seem like scare mongering or science fiction, but a few years ago Canada's power grid was knocked out for a week or so due to a CME along with various satellites. CME's can vary in strength but as I've stated a larger than usual one is reported to hit the earth soon.

I'm no expert at all, I just read a little on the net on the subject, but I think it worth considering, we may not be as sure of our techie devices as we may think.

 

[Hayles66]

Here's one for you, a hypothetical scenario so to speak, it may be "OUT THERE" but no less relevant.

NASA have stated that in the next few years, between now and 2013 there will be a larger than usual Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun. Scientists worldwide are unsure what the effects of this may be, some suggest the effects could knock out electronic devices wholesale, anything containing wires will be affected. All machines reliant on electricity will become unusable, power stations will cease to function, not for weeks, months or even years, some say a decade or more as the infrastructure isn't in place globally to supply the parts needed for repair. We will in effect be knocked back into the dark ages.

This may seem like scare mongering or science fiction, but a few years ago Canada's power grid was knocked out for a week or so due to a CME along with various satellites. CME's can vary in strength but as I've stated a larger than usual one is reported to hit the earth soon.

I'm no expert at all, I just read a little on the net on the subject, but I think it worth considering, we may not be as sure of our techie devices as we may think.

This is true, but hey, let's enjoy ourselves first.

 

[Gabriel1]

Here's one for you, a hypothetical scenario so to speak, it may be "OUT THERE" but no less relevant.

NASA have stated that in the next few years, between now and 2013 there will be a larger than usual Coronal Mass Ejection from the sun. Scientists worldwide are unsure what the effects of this may be, some suggest the effects could knock out electronic devices wholesale, anything containing wires will be affected. All machines reliant on electricity will become unusable, power stations will cease to function, not for weeks, months or even years, some say a decade or more as the infrastructure isn't in place globally to supply the parts needed for repair. We will in effect be knocked back into the dark ages.

This may seem like scare mongering or science fiction, but a few years ago Canada's power grid was knocked out for a week or so due to a CME along with various satellites. CME's can vary in strength but as I've stated a larger than usual one is reported to hit the earth soon.

I'm no expert at all, I just read a little on the net on the subject, but I think it worth considering, we may not be as sure of our techie devices as we may think.

And the correlation between this and book sales is?

The Archangel

 

[Gazzaho]

And the correlation between this and book sales is?

The Archangel

The correlation is to long term storage of ebooks and their sales over their paper counterparts, and that electricity isn't essential to producing paper and ink. If electronic devices don't work how useful are ebooks?

 

[DontUnderstandMyIpad]

The correlation is to long term storage of ebooks and their sales over their paper counterparts, and that electricity isn't essential to producing paper and ink. If electronic devices don't work how useful are ebooks?

I don't know. A Kindle still gives you up to 700h of reading time, unless you are saying the sun flares ruin all batteries, then yes, no ebooks

 

[Gazzaho]

I don't know. A Kindle still gives you up to 700h of reading time, unless you are saying the sun flares ruin all batteries, then yes, no ebooks

Do some reading on the subject, there was a CME occurrence reported in, if I can remember, 1959 or so and it caused barb wire fences and telegraph wires to heat up so much they caused fires on farms and offices in both the USA and the UK among other places, back then we were less reliant on computers and the like so it didn't have as great an impact as it would today, it really depends how big the CME is. I believe batteries would also be affected.