
Rework sales: Paper ain't dead yet - rockarage
http://37signals.com/svn/posts/2981-rework-sales-paper-aint-dead-yet?56#comments
======
jonnathanson
I suspect that "Rework" suffers from the same fate that many hot business
books suffer from: a lot of people buy it more to display it on their shelves
than to actually read it. They imagine they gain some degree of intellectual
credibility every time someone walks into their offices and sees it on the
desk, or above the computer in a stack of brightly colored and catchily titled
books by Kawasaki, Godin, Gladwell, et al.

I've actually read "Rework," and I quite enjoyed it. So I am not speaking ill
of its content or its value whatsoever. But we should be honest -- and, sadly,
uncharitable -- about what percentage of books sold we believe are actually
being read. Especially in this genre. Remember: an eBook can't sit on a shelf
in an office somewhere, impressing someone's boss.

On the flip-side, there are some actionable and interesting marketing
implications presented by this case and others like it. That is to say: your
eBook buyers are (probably) more likely to be your actual readers. Perhaps
it's time publishers started segmenting their audiences accordingly, and
focusing efforts accordingly.

~~~
rockarage
or Remember: it's easier to share a Hardcover book when an ebook has
restriction.

~~~
zlopid
This. Business books like Rework are about sharing ideas from the authors.
People who read it want to share it with other people they know, too, which is
why a paper version is great - it's continuously share-able.

~~~
jonnathanson
I agree that ebooks should be sharable, and that sharability lends a nice
advantage to paper. At the same time, I'm not necessarily convinced that
sharability is a decisive factor in most people's decisions to buy paper over
ebooks. Who knows; it might well be. Just seems like a bit of a stretch to
suggest that most people are still choosing paper because they want to share
it. (Whereas I have seen countless hundreds, maybe even thousands, of people
who buy paper books to hoard or display, presumably unread).

My inner optimist would like to agree with you, but my inner cynic has a less
charitable view of most buyers in this genre.

------
rickmb
Buying and owning a physical book or kind-of-renting a DRM-laden, platform-
bound ebook that can disappear from my possession of become unusable at any
moment and I can't lend, give away or resell after I've read it.

Paper ain't dead because there's no serious alternative.

------
Pent
Its high paper sales are probably due to the fact the paper version of the
book is so well put together. Quality

