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The future is bleak


cseresz

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  • 3 months later...

In the E-Reader Era, a Book a Year Is Slacking:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/business/in-e-reader-age-of-writers-cramp-a-book-a-year-is-slacking.html

Stephen King opts to only offer novel in book form:

http://www.bbc.co.uk...t-arts-18278719

"Joyland will be coming out in paperback, and folks who want to read it will have to buy the actual book,"

King, a prolific author with a string of bestsellers to his name, released Riding the Bullet online in 2000, declaring: "I'm curious to see what sort of response there is and whether or not this is the future".

But the publishers' websites, which were offering the novel for $2.50, crashed due to high demand - and within hours the book was being offered around the web for free.

He went on to release thriller The Plant - selling instalments directly from his own website - on the understanding that he would quit the novel if readers failed to pay up. He completed six chapters.

He later revealed that he made a profit of more than £300,000, yet he brought the experiment to a halt, claiming: "Book-readers don't regard electronic books as real books."

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I'm loving my kindle and the space it saves me. I still like to buy paper copies of my favourite books though. It gives people something to look at in my living room. Plus you can't really get an author to sign an e-reader.

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Im guilty! Half my buys this year have been ebooks, most the others used. I have failed the industry.

i'm about the same. the only physical book purchases i have made this year are the night circus, which is just a beautiful physical object, the lions of al-rassan which i could'nt get on kindle and a couple of books by some abraham guy just cause i'm a nice person and wanted to contribute to putting food on his table. everything else was purchased for kindle or second hand.

ETA: i do realize they make money on e-sales also which makes my food tabling comment rather asinine but i stand by it proudly. eat your greens danny boy!!!!

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Ebooks mean more people get to read more books because the books are cheaper. More risks get taken on more authors.

Ebooks may be the best thing [to] ever happen to books.

/thread.

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i'm about the same. the only physical book purchases i have made this year are the night circus, which is just a beautiful physical object, the lions of al-rassan which i could'nt get on kindle and a couple of books by some abraham guy just cause i'm a nice person and wanted to contribute to putting food on his table. everything else was purchased for kindle or second hand.

ETA: i do realize they make money on e-sales also which makes my food tabling comment rather asinine but i stand by it proudly. eat your greens danny boy!!!!

According to Joe, ebooks put more food on the table:

Didn’t do too badly in the US either, especially in ebook format, which is rapidly becoming a significant slice of the pie, especially from an author’s standpoint as royalty rates can be five, six, even ten times higher than on a heavily discounted paperback.
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Ebooks mean more people get to read more books because the books are cheaper. More risks get taken on more authors.

Ebooks may be the best thing [to] ever happen to books.

/thread.

I'm witcha on this. And i've gone waaaaay over to the dark side in terms of spending. I've spent a lot on both audio and ebooks this year, but the only dead tree books I've biught have either been ones that don't exist in e format or ones for my mom, who doesn't do e-anything.

eta-- btw I would happily shell out the bucks for favorite hardbacks if I could conveniently get them signed. Alas, I live in a little town that doesn't even have a pet store, much less any place for authors to do signings.

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  • 1 month later...

Don't think anyone has mentioned it yet but if you read more than ~50 books on an e-reader during it's lifetime you've reduced your environmental impact, and any additional books beyond this point reduce it further.

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304870304577490950051438304.html

Your E-Book Is Reading You

"In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them."

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Don't think anyone has mentioned it yet but if you read more than ~50 books on an e-reader during it's lifetime you've reduced your environmental impact, and any additional books beyond this point reduce it further.

And all you've added to the evironment is toxic cadmium and microprocessors encased in a non-biodegradable plastic shell that will destroy some coral reef somewhere after the lithium soaked battery and display screen inevitably konk out after five years. ;)

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http://online.wsj.co...0051438304.html

Your E-Book Is Reading You

"In the past, publishers and authors had no way of knowing what happens when a reader sits down with a book. Does the reader quit after three pages, or finish it in a single sitting? Do most readers skip over the introduction, or read it closely, underlining passages and scrawling notes in the margins? Now, e-books are providing a glimpse into the story behind the sales figures, revealing not only how many people buy particular books, but how intensely they read them."

Oh noes, big brother wants to know how gud u reed!

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Thanks! I thought that was very interesting, it has also put me off buying an e-reader.

Since what the publishers want is the reader to finish the one book and then buy the next in the series or another one by the same author, or just a similar read I suppose it will lead to more targeted texts and probably more editorial interest in the flow of the story - how the reader is engaged and tension built up or maintain to create a 'must read' feeling.

I'm sure that something along those lines must happen now - but probably crudely based on sales figures rather than by knowing that books with more characters are read more slowly, or that readers skip author x's sex scenes or read more rapidly after author y's murder scenes.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Children 'too embarrassed' to pick up books, study says

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9526249/Children-too-embarrassed-to-pick-up-books-study-says.html

"According to the latest study, one-in-six children admitted they were too embarrassed to read in front of their friends for fear of being labelled a geek.

It emerged that 38.1 per cent of pupils read in their spare time when the study was first carried out in 2005. This dropped to 37.7 per cent in 2007, 32.2 per cent in 2009 and 30.8 per cent in the latest poll was completed in 2011.

Of those who did read outside class, 47.8 per cent said they read fiction, down from 51.5 per cent in 2005."

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  • 3 weeks later...

Over the past week I've had amazon email me to say they've updated two of my books - one with new content including a map, new prologue material, and something else, and the other one was re-edited to clean up errors. Can't do that with paper books.

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