

E-book sales top paperbacks for first time - cwan
http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/15/technology/ebooks_beat_paperbacks/index.htm

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ghshephard
This is great news - because, hopefully, it means that more publishers will
realize that there is a lot of money to be made releasing their books in EBook
format. I find it strange that so many of the books that I want to purchase
haven't been released in Kindle format. Even books that are obvious
candidates, such as "The Yiddish Policemen's Union." It's an award winning
Novel (2007 Nebula, 2008 Hugo), Science Fiction, and has been out for more
than four years. And yet, still not available in electronic format.

As more and more people pick up e-readers, I'm hoping that publishing
electronically will cease to be an option.

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wyclif
Are these numbers really good? I don't doubt them in this story, but I must
ask because recently we've all been regaled with "ZOMG EBOOK SALES PASS BOOK
SALES" stories and a few of those have been accused of cooking sales numbers.

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moultano
I've mostly moved over to ebooks myself, but I still have two big concerns
about it.

1\. How will I share books with my spouse? Is having the same account across
multiple (duplicate) devices going to be the norm/permitted?

2\. How will I share books with my young kids? Will it require buying an
expensive destructible device?

~~~
noja
3\. You can't read ebooks in the bath (yet)

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lreeves
Sure you can; I used mine in the tub (a Sony Reader) all the time with no I'll
effects. If you're paranoid though just throw the reader into a ziploc bag to
protect it.

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AdamGibbins
I'm still waiting for the UK government to remove VAT from eBooks like paper
books.

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nextparadigms
It's no wonder publishers want to price ebooks _at least_ as much as
paperbooks or even hardcovers. They knew this day would come, and if ebooks
followed the typical disruptive innovation path of being cheaper than the old
type of product (real books in this case), then publishers would be in trouble
(at least if they wouldn't adapt to the new reality).

This way they not only transition to the ebook paradigm without many problems,
but they even get to have higher profits, since the costs of producing and
distributing ebooks are much lower.

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estel
In fairness, I've not even found this to be the case with my UK Kindle. It's
very rare that, when an e-book copy is available in the first place, it costs
more than the paperback on Amazon.

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teyc
There'll be no more cheap second books to purchase if e-books go mainstream.
For example, secondhand Dale Carnegie for $2.00 is a steal.

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killerdark
Can someone post a link to the report? I looked on <http://www.publishers.org>
, but could not find it. Thank you.

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Humourisok
Next time you invent a technology that lasts 500 years call me.

J.G.

~~~
Groxx
I've re-invented the wheel a few times...

