Why resistance to e-books is futile
Further anecdotal evidence that resistance to e-books is futile: Gareth Powell tells how he bought iPod the Missing Manual (O’Reilly, Amazon) by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue for $3.50 as an iPhone download. A bookseller in Sydney wanted $27 for it (though Powell notes it sells for $20 in the US). Powell holds this as further evidence that the paper side of the publishing industry is dying.
Down in the comments, one of the authors, David Pogue, chimes in. He indicates that he has no control over who releases the e-book or how. Scroll further. A representative of Pogue’s publisher and “person responsible for the iPhone App” chimes in. Here’s the best part:
“I can say that the data is clear: David’s print sales are not negatively affected by the iPhone App …Your concerns are only warranted if you assume that a $4.99 app sale means a lost $24.99 print sale — our data suggests the opposite: that $24.99 print sales are unaffected or increase, and that a $4.99 app sale is instead of no sale at all.”
He provides this link as evidence that e-book sales are not a drag on p-book sales. Powell ends the comments by confirming what advocates of the e-book already know: after buying the iPhone app, he bought the print book, at full price.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:14 pm
For now, ebooks may not hurt sales of print books. But what about in the (perhaps near) future, when people do more and more of their reading on an electronic device?
When more and more people have something they keep with them all the time that has a screen large enough for comfortable reading, ebooks absolutely will hurt sales of paper books.
It’s going to happen. The questions are when, and who will be prepared.
January 28th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
@Jon: Eric Flint looked at that possibility in one of his Salvos Against Big Brother columns. He doesn’t think there’s any need to worry.
January 28th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
I am a little sick of this whole ‘ebook sales will hurt the sale of print books’ argument. Progress may bring changes, but it brings opportunities too. Touch-tone phones affected the sales of rotary phones. Electric washing machines affected the sales of hand-wringer ones. But the people who made those products still seemed to find ways to profit off the new marketplace.
There are some types of books I do prefer to read in print, but for fairly disposable best-seller fiction, e is more than fine for me. I wish just *one* publisher would be visionary enough to embrace e—really embrace it, with proper publicity and all that jazz—and show the rest of them that there is *money* to be made in the digital frontier, and without burdening your customers with inflated prices and unreasonable DRM schemes.
January 28th, 2009 at 8:27 pm
@Chris: After you look past the giant tip jar at the top of that page, and the occasional off-topic rambling, that’s a pretty interesting article.
It is always scary when your industry and the way to make money from it starts to change. And there will always be some (most?) who fight it, and in the end they will lose. Someone will figure out the new ways for authors to make a living, and some will be fine.
January 28th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
@ficbot: Publisher really embracing e? You mean like Baen?