
Amazon Kindle e-book downloads outsell paperbacks - mmavnn
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12305015
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galactus
There's one thing that scares me about the coming death of the physical books.
When I was a kid there were a lot of books at home. Frequently, some book
would catch my attention and I would read it (or try to read it, sometimes I
was too young to understand some of them). It was not that I was always
actively looking for something to read, it was just that books, being physical
and visible all the time, were basically impossible to ignore. The fact that
they _looked_ different was important, in my opinion, to make me want to look
at them more closely.

I don't see how that experience can be replicated today with electronic books,
for my kids. I have bought a lot of books for the kindle since I got one, and
it kinds of ticks me that Im actually depriving my kids of the real bookshelf
experience I enjoyed so much, by not buying the physical version.

(sorry for the poor english)

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alextp
I wish I could pay extra when buying a paperback and get the electronic
edition "on loan" until the paperback arrives. This would be the best of both
worlds, for me.

~~~
morgantwenty
sod on "loan" I would like the option to have both thanks, I don't mind paying
a £1 or so more than the physical copy is on its own but at the moment if I
want both I have to buy both the physical and the digital copy. Like the
BluRay+DVD packs that are available.

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atgm
I think it's much easier to impulse buy e-books on the Kindle than it is to
buy a paperback. You get instant gratification -- you see a book you want, pay
for it, and you get it without having to travel anywhere.

This is especially potent if you're already reading a series; just go buy the
next book in the series. Sometimes I'll find out about a book and then just
grab my Kindle to get the book before I forget about it.

Instant purchase, instant gratification!

~~~
greyman
For me it is also a better delivery method. Living in Europe, it takes about 2
weeks for print books to arrive, then I need to go to post office to pick them
up, I need to pay for the delivery, etc. It is all so much easier with the
ebook. Moreover, I don't even own Kindle, and read my ebooks on the netbook or
phone.

~~~
ErrantX
Here in the UK, and with Amazon prime, I find the opposite is true. Ordering
paper books they turn up by courier at my office the next day, usually before
10am.

Ok, so the cost if £1 more per book but speaking personally it's worth it :)

(I realise I am an outlier, though, maybe not on HN; spending upwards of
£1,000/r on books)

~~~
flipbrad
At least you own your books and can sell or pass them to others. Not so for
eBook licences 'purchased' from Amazon:
[http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/comment/2011/the-
dummy%E2%80...](http://zine.openrightsgroup.org/comment/2011/the-
dummy%E2%80%99s-guide-to-ebooks)

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EnderMB
I would be sold on the Kindle if I could read technical books easily. Over the
past few years I have built quiet a collection of (legal) books in PDF format,
only for them to be unreadable on my Kindle and impossible to convert to
another format without damaging code, graphs, equations, etc.

For novels, it's a fantastic bit of kit, but outside of that the dead tree
format isn't so dead.

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ja27
They're not "unreadable" on the Kindle, but the Kindle (especially the smaller
models) are pretty non-optimal for using tech reference books in PDF format.

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jacquesm
previous discussion here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2149521>

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pilif
While I always felt that this was inevitable, I think this went much faster
than what I would have anticipated.

I guess the advantages of ebooks (immediate availability, much easier purchase
process) have helped to convert people more quickly and made the converts buy
more books in general (certainly happened to me).

Now let's hope that this success is seen by other industries too (Console
Gaming, Movies) where they would still do everything possible to have you buy
physical media.

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rst
Well, the transition isn't over yet. Amazon is comparing _their own_ sales of
paperbacks to their sales of Kindle books. But Amazon's share of the ebook
market is a lot larger than their share of the paperback market. The industry
as a whole is still selling substantially more paperbacks than ebooks. Or at
least they were, as of fourth quarter last year.

~~~
patrickgzill
Exactly, as well, the book market is the combination of hardcover + paperback,
so the comparison is lacking in that feature as well.

~~~
loire280
In July they announced that ebook sales had outpaced hardcover sales, so while
sales probably haven't exceeded paperback + hardcover sales, it's certainly on
pace to do so soon.

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cletus
I hope this spurs publishers on to making electronic versions (not necessarily
Kindle) as standard. I for one have no interest in dead tree books anymore. I
read serial works (typically fiction) on an ebook reader or my iPad and my
iPad is fantastic for technical books.

Sadly the range of Kindle books is still too small as the publishers (pretty
much every content distributor actually) is stuck in the dark ages.

~~~
rmc
_Sadly the range of Kindle books is still too small as the publishers (pretty
much every content distributor actually) is stuck in the dark ages._

They need to get their act together. If there is no good 'offical' ebook,
people will easily turn to piracy. If that gets established as the norm for
normal people, the book publishers will lose out.

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allenp
I've been following this for some time, if you want more information on it
this is one of the best blogs out there detailing numbers between
paper/e-publishing:

<http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/>

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fierarul
I don't understand this -- I buy ebooks because it's too complicated to buy
physical books from my country. If it would be as convenient as the US I would
buy mostly paperback and just for a select few the ebook version.

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ja27
I wonder if Amazon is counting all the free downloads? I know I've purchased
one Kindle book, but downloaded maybe 20 free ones from Amazon.

I'll be more impressed when the e-book revenue catches paperbacks.

~~~
askar_yu
"Amazon announced that in the US since the start of the year it had sold 115
e-book downloads for every 100 paperback books, _even excluding its downloads
of free books_." (highlight is mine)

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jim_h
Part of me doesn't want to believe it. Mainly because ebooks are too
restrictive (can't resell) and overpriced for my liking.

Also, I might be nitpicking, but it seems like ebooks only beat 'paperback
books'. In that article they make a distinction between 'paperback books' and
'hardcovers'. So ebook sales haven't surpassed all physical paper books yet.
The title is correct, but could be misleading if you assume 'paperback' is
just generic physical book.

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DanielStraight
How could it be any other way? The Kindle starts with no books. People already
own paperbacks. To fill up a Kindle requires buying Kindle books. To fill up a
bookshelf requires nothing as most people who read already have full
bookshelves.

~~~
gjm11
If people are buying books _to fill up the available space_ then you're right.
If people are buying books _to read them_ then you probably aren't.

I'd guess that most people are buying books to read them.

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DanielStraight
My own experience with devices that can be filled up leads me to believe that
there will always be an initial increase in buying rate because of the newness
and emptiness of the device.

The rate at which you buy books to read can vary. If it increases, that
doesn't mean you're buying books just to fill up a device. You're still buying
them to read, just faster. I would imagine people who get a brand new device
for reading likely increase their reading time too.

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bowmande
The problem for me is that e-books cost the same as paperbacks. And personally
I like to have a copy to share. With the ability to share and lend books
alleviates some of this issue. But I still think the publishers are holding it
back.

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tybris
Interestingly, net sales increased by 40% in 2010. Amazon is still close to
being a not-for-profit organization, but they appear to be growing faster than
Google.

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siglesias
what's the data? is this the pie growing or is digital actually eating into
physical book sales in a zero sum game, and to what degree?

