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http://www.huliq.com/10017/amazons-kindle-outsells-hardcopy-books-80

The Kindle electronic reader is blowing off the shelves in stores and Amazon.com is selling more downloaded books than ever. More and more people are turning to reading books that they have downloaded from the Internet than they are to buying hard cover books in bookstores. Great for Internet companies, bad for the bookstores.

As digital books are taking over the publishing industry, sites such as the Internet retailer, Amazon.com are saying that they are now selling 80% more downloaded books than hardbacks. Amazon's download format is for its Kindle electronic reader as well as other devices.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive stated,"The Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Astonishing when considering that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years and Kindle books for 33 months."

With the convenience of downloading books online, there is less and less reason for people to spend the time and gas money to get into their cars to visit bookstores. The Internet has been taking over many industries and it is now making its way to the publishing industry. Although paperback books were not included in the statistic, it may be safe to say that if they were included, the statistic may have been higher, but that is not a concluded fact.

Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Wilkofsky Gruen Associates Incorporated did a survey. The study showed that, “Although revenue from retail sales of printed books has been stagnant for several years, electronic books were forecast to surge to $1.6 billion in sales in 2010 from $1 billion last year.”

It seems as though publishing companies are trying harder than ever to compete with the online companies by lower their prices on their inventory of books sold for retail purchase in stores. However, they are having a difficult time keeping up with the new trend. Amazon said, “For its full second quarter, 143 electronic books were purchased on the site for every 100 hardcover books sold.”

Barnes & Noble, still trying to fight for sales, lowered the price of the Kindle’s rival, the e-book reader, Nook, from $199 to $150. However, it was only hours later when Amazon made a huge decrease in the price of the Kindle portable reader to make it more affordable for people to purchase it. When Amazon lowered their price of the Kindle from $189 from $259 last month, they said sales of the device tripled.

I would much rather have a hard copy of a book. Hell i just bought a WH codex over downloading it for free from GW. Also i like the smell of a book...... yes i am weird so what.

My wife uses the Sony e-Reader.

We own a kindle, which my wife gave me for my birthday last year. However, I've discovered that I tend to prefer a paperback book. That way, you can take it with you, and if you lose it, it's $5-$15 down the drain, not hundreds!!!

It is a great product/device, though, and since there is competition in the digital reader market, there's not going to be a monopoly (a la iTunes, for all intents and purposes) on selling digital books. That means the publishers have more room to get their share of the cut. And if means people buy more books than before, all the better!

There's no sense fighting it. Before long, we'll have digital paper. However, I see paperbacks having a lot of life in them yet. None of the readers are intuitive enough to "flip through" a book yet, or easily go back to check a detail you missed while reading. And bookstores have more going for them than just the books- the experience of browsing, the embedded Starbucks, the new book smell. I think they're going to be OK.

Just my $0.02, from a Kindle owner who still buys and reads paperbacks

RiTides wrote:We own a kindle, which my wife gave me for my birthday last year. However, I've discovered that I tend to prefer a paperback book. That way, you can take it with you, and if you lose it, it's $5-$15 down the drain, not hundreds!!!

My wife's Sony fits in her purse. It's smaller than both the Nook and the Kindle(about 1/8 of an inch thick, 6-7 inches tall, 4 inches wide) and cheaper, but has no built in internet(it instead works through USB cord and program that works almost EXACTLY like iTunes).

She brings it because all the male Air Force LTs make fun of her choice of books like it was high school all over again.

Both my father and mother own Kindles and my sister still works at B&N, so I've gotten to play with all 3 in comparison to the others. I've yet to choose which I'd use when/if I ever relent.

Dang plat. Choose! Choose! Choose!

I don't know which one I like :(

malfred wrote:Dang plat. Choose! Choose! Choose!

I don't know which one I like :(

lol

Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if I got the Nook for 2 reasons: No one else in my family has one and I worked at B&N for 3 years.

If you want wifi, go Kindle or Nook(although I hear Sony has a more expensive or a newer version with WiFi).

If you want to check out free books without going through a Library(you WILL have to go into the store though, soooo), go Nook.

If you want small, portable, and a little less expensive, go Sony.

Past that, get a chance to see them in person(Nook is at B&N stores, Sony at Toys R Us or Borders, Kindle you'll have to find someone who has one), see how the operate and choose the one you find easiest/best to navigate and/or easiest to read.

I've seen plenty of people reading them, but never actually read on one.

Only problem with them I've heard is people ahve downloaded the book, and amazon ended up not having a liscence or something, and the book is deleted.

Golden Eyed Scout wrote:I've seen plenty of people reading them, but never actually read on one.

Only problem with them I've heard is people ahve downloaded the book, and amazon ended up not having a liscence or something, and the book is deleted.

Yeah I heard that's a problem.

It isn't shared by Sony, however, because of the way they work. Incidentally, the Sony can also use PDF and eBooks that you have stored on your computer, not just the books you buy through the eStore.

If I seem to be pushing the Sony, it's only because I know the most about them thanks to my wife having one(and living with her, not my parents).

How proprietary are the file formats?

If I buy a kindle and some books today, and decide I want a nook or Sony, will I
have to repurchase in those formats?

malfred wrote:How proprietary are the file formats?

If I buy a kindle and some books today, and decide I want a nook or Sony, will I
have to repurchase in those formats?

Supported formats on the Sony:

BBeB Book (LRF), PDF, TXT, RTF, ePub

Supported Formats on the Kindle:

MOBI, PRC, TXT, TPZ, AZW

MOBI and PRC(both known as Mobipocket) is a format owned exclusively by Amazon.

Supported formats on the Nook:

PDB, ePub, PDF

Generally, thanks to DRM, they're not able to share book purchased through their individual services.

That's why I suggest you take them for test drives before buying, as you will have to buy some books multiple times if you swutch.

It's not very astonishing when you realise that the great majority of books sold are paperbacks.

I don't buy any hardback fiction, and most academic textbooks are only available in softback.

I have a Sony eReader. I haven't bought a single book for it, because they cost the same as the physical volume. I simply download out of copyright books, of which there are hundreds available free and legal.

Any book whose author died before 1940 is copyright free in the UK (life +70 years). In Japan the copyright term is death +50 so lots more volumes become available when I visit there.