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Will eBooks supplant Paper-books?


Ser Scot A Ellison

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On 9/9/2016 at 3:04 PM, Darth Richard II said:

Oh jeez, eye floaters are the worst. I had laser eye surgery in both eyes that caused massive floaters to the point where I had to have the fluids in both my eyes replaced. I feel ya man.

 

 

 

That is the scariest thing I have heard in a long time.  :shudders:  I will use this when people ask me why I don't just get Lasik surgery.  My current excuse is that if I don't feel like cleaning my house, I can just take off my glasses.

I buy paper books from authors that I hope to meet and collect signatures.  First edition hardcovers whenever possible.  I buy mass market paperbacks of authors whose books I know I'll be lending out.  There are three people in this world that I will lend a first edition to.  Sologdin is one of them, the man has a profound respect for books.

The e-reader is great for reading at night when my date needs the lights out.  I date too many non-readers. :(

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7 minutes ago, Lily Valley said:

 

The e-reader is great for reading at night when my date needs the lights out.  I date too many non-readers. :(

I agree so much.  Without my e-reader my relationship would be very strained or involve some seriously altered sleeping arrangements.  

 

 

I love my paper books and my e-reader.  E-reader is also convenient for searching for specific phrases and passages when chatting about books with people on the internet.

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On 9/9/2016 at 10:52 PM, R'hllors Red Lobster said:

Shit, if a real book came with a coupon for a few download of the e-book, I can tell you id probably buy an e-reader and helluva lot more new books

A few years back, we were talking with Ty Franck (half of James S. A. Corey) at Readercon and he said he, as an author, was a big fan of this idea. I'm not sure how much of an effect it would have on sales (would need more info w/r/t what you mentioned in the second half of your post), but you, Ty, and I can't be the only three people around who would be excited about such a thing.

Right now, I take much the same approach to books as I do with music. I buy (almost) everything in digital format first, read or listen to it, and if means enough to me to warrant a physical copy (OR if the occasion arises where I can buy a copy at an event to get signed by the writer or I can buy a physical record to support a touring band), I'll go and buy a physical copy. Yes, I end up paying for the same piece twice, but in the end I'm just giving more money to artists whose work I value.

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On 11/09/2016 at 3:10 PM, Mr. X said:

A few years back, we were talking with Ty Franck (half of James S. A. Corey) at Readercon and he said he, as an author, was a big fan of this idea. I'm not sure how much of an effect it would have on sales (would need more info w/r/t what you mentioned in the second half of your post), but you, Ty, and I can't be the only three people around who would be excited about such a thing.

Right now, I take much the same approach to books as I do with music. I buy (almost) everything in digital format first, read or listen to it, and if means enough to me to warrant a physical copy (OR if the occasion arises where I can buy a copy at an event to get signed by the writer or I can buy a physical record to support a touring band), I'll go and buy a physical copy. Yes, I end up paying for the same piece twice, but in the end I'm just giving more money to artists whose work I value.

It seems like such an obvious idea - I'm amazed a publisher hasn't tried. I can only imagine it may be that digital and physical books have a different department and the digital ones might worry their "genuine" sales would be damaged by such a set up? In the sense they'd be propped up subsidised by the physical book sales.

They've tried it with comics and weirdly I gave up on that pretty quickly. Which was sort of odd given they'd give a code for another comic in digital format. The issue there was not being able to read it on any format.

I keep hoping Amazon might do something along the lines of how they give you a digital copy for every CD you buy from them. They also do discounts for audiobooks if you buy the kindle version. I'd be very tempted by a "you bought the book from us" you can have the digital version for £1-2.

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3 hours ago, red snow said:

It seems like such an obvious idea - I'm amazed a publisher hasn't tried. I can only imagine it may be that digital and physical books have a different department and the digital ones might worry their "genuine" sales would be damaged by such a set up? In the sense they'd be propped up subsidised by the physical book sales.

I keep hoping Amazon might do something along the lines of how they give you a digital copy for every CD you buy from them. They also do discounts for audiobooks if you buy the kindle version. I'd be very tempted by a "you bought the book from us" you can have the digital version for £1-2.

I imagine one of the challenges is that records are sealed in plastic when in a store, so the card with a download code stays firmly inside the package, whereas that won't work with the current model for the majority of books (where you can pick them up off the shelf and leaf through the pages). I suppose there's the possibility that everything moves towards the "display copy + shrink wrapped sale copies" thing that places do with art books or cookbooks or coffee-table books.

Pretty sure that Amazon US did the "Kindle version for $2 if you ordered a physical book from us" thing for a while. I remember getting notices about that for things I had ordered for my mom as birthday or Christmas presents. Not sure if they still do it, as any physical book purchases I make are at local bookstores or convention dealer rooms.

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On Friday, September 09, 2016 at 9:07 PM, Durckad said:

 

I buy both. I like having hardcover copies for my favorite authors and I like e-books for their convenience and portability. I do not mind seeing mass market paperbacks going the way of the dodo. Mass market paperbacks are the worst. Worse than Britta even.

Man, I love having MMPBS.  Of course hardcovers are nice, but with all of my books, I don't always have space or cash for all of the hardback I want.  Plus, I find the MMPBS easier when traveling, as I'm one of those with little to no use from an e-reader.  

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1 hour ago, Mr. X said:

Pretty sure that Amazon US did the "Kindle version for $2 if you ordered a physical book from us" thing for a while. I remember getting notices about that for things I had ordered for my mom as birthday or Christmas presents. Not sure if they still do it, as any physical book purchases I make are at local bookstores or convention dealer rooms.

They only did that for a small number of books, with a range of $0-2.99 for the knidle version.  I was hoping to take advantage of it on some stuff I had given my brother over the years, but those books never were available.  I can't even remember what they called the program.

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6 minutes ago, RedEyedGhost said:

They only did that for a small number of books, with a range of $0-2.99 for the knidle version.  I was hoping to take advantage of it on some stuff I had given my brother over the years, but those books never were available.  I can't even remember what they called the program.

MatchBook. And yeah, now I remember the limited selection. 

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1 hour ago, Mr. X said:

MatchBook. And yeah, now I remember the limited selection. 

Very true.  In fact the whole MatchBook program was poorly designed and executed.  Not only was the selection limited, but for those books in the program, the gymnastics required to successfully redeem the voucher and acquire the legitimate copy of the ebook and load it onto your kindle ereader were quite challenging.

Personally, I think that these format / copy protection / DRM / availability issues drive the "illegitimate" ebook market more than any other thing.  If the booksellers or publishers would make the acquisition process easier to accomplish, they would earn more repeat sales and have stickier customers.  My own experience with a few (not most, and Amazon was by no means the worst) publishers has been so incredibly negative that I have sworn never to do business with them again.  They may hold the rights to authors I enjoy, but the frustration of acquiring the ebook is so great that it overwhelms the pleasure of reading.

It is strongly reminiscent of buying something in the old Eastern Block countries after the wall fell in the early 1990s.  All that is missing is doing the transaction through an interpreter, like this.

Me - "I want to buy a bolt and a nut and a wrench."

Shop 1 - "A bolt is [x monies]."

Me - "Great.  Here is [x monies].  May I also have a nut and a wrench?"

Shop 1 - "This is a bolt shop, not a nut shop.  For a nut, you must go to the nut shop."

Me - "Are you kidding?"

Shop 1 - /Is serious as a funeral/

Me - "I would like to buy a nut and a wrench to turn it."

Shop 2 - "A nut is [y monies]."

Me - "Here is [y monies].  May I also have a wrench?"

Shop 2 - "This is a nut shop, not a wrench shop.  For a wrench, you must go to the wrench shop."

Me - "Seriously?"

Shop 2 - /Is serious as a funeral/

Me - "Is this the wrench shop?"

Shop 3 - "Yes."

Me - "Good.  How much is a wrench?"

Shop 3 - "[z monies]."

Me - "Please may I purchase a wrench."

Shop 3 - "Are you an engineer?"

Me - "No, I just want to buy a wrench."

Shop 3 - "Only an engineer may purchase a wrench."

Me - /quite excited/ "Who cares if I am an engineer?  You have a wrench, and I have money.  Let's exchange these things in your shop."

Shop 3 - "Only an engineer may use a wrench."

Me - "What do you care what I do with the wrench if I give you the [z monies]?  I could throw it directly into the Danube for all you know!"

Shop 3 - "Only an engineer knows how to operate a wrench."

Me - /prevaricating/ "You know what, I just remembered, I AM an *%$# engineer!  Here is [z monies]!  Give me the @#$% wrench!"

Me - /is too angry to effectively use nut, bolt and wrench due to shaking with rage.  should have hired an engineer./

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I'm shocked that Amazon messed the idea up so badly (I don't think the trial-run ever occurred in the UK). As I said the kindle to audiobook discount is incredibly easy - no vouchers, just buy at the discounted rate.

Getting it to work in bookstores could be tricky but they could just have a drawer with codes in that matches a book - a bit like how they keep CDs separate from the cases in stores? They could just do the whole thing digitally in a way that's connected to ISBN codes to save space as well but then I guess you'd get folk finding ways to steal the code. Not a problem in the sense people steal them anyhow but I'd be furious if I couldn't get my free ebook because someone had stolen the code. Actually, that would be a harsh but effective way of getting e-theft to upset the consumer personally.

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On 9/9/2016 at 1:41 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

REG,

Okay, explain to this fool the flat sales of eBooks and the growth in paper book sales.

Possible explanations:

1. eBook use is also on the rise, but so is piracy artificially deflating sales numbers

2. The publishing industry has managed to keep the price spread small enough that the value of the physical object outweighs the advantages of the electronic media. First one I googled to attempt to come up with an example: Kindle version: $6.99, MMP: $6.19 

 

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23 minutes ago, Ninefingers said:

Possible explanations:

1. eBook use is also on the rise, but so is piracy artificially deflating sales numbers

2. The publishing industry has managed to keep the price spread small enough that the value of the physical object outweighs the advantages of the electronic media. First one I googled to attempt to come up with an example: Kindle version: $6.99, MMP: $6.19

 

Ninefingers,

Point one would seem to deflate the arugment that breaching copyright doesn't damaged book sales.

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On 2016-09-09 at 4:36 PM, RedEyedGhost said:

Because old people act like old people.  The first kindle was released only nine years ago, and paper to ebooks will take generations.  "I don't get why people are using this newfangled paper when cuneiform is perfectly good.  Hurumpf..." heard 2000 years ago.

And still read while a lot of that newfangled papyrus is lost forever.

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59 minutes ago, maarsen said:

And still read while a lot of that newfangled papyrus is lost forever.

I know this argument always devolves to this point, so I'm not ashamed to accelerate the journey, but cuneiform or gtfo out, also, I only listen to unrecorded oral histories told by decrepit old people on a winters night so cold your bones hurt.  You uncouth modern consumers can keep your fancy books and devilscreens.

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I just prefer having a physical copy and turning pages and all that. It's just what I'm used to, and I never managed to read the book from the screen for as long as I could the paper version. My focus would simply drift away.

It seems I'm one of the people who keep paper books sales high. :D 

On 9/11/2016 at 3:57 PM, Lily Valley said:

That is the scariest thing I have heard in a long time.  :shudders:  I will use this when people ask me why I don't just get Lasik surgery.  My current excuse is that if I don't feel like cleaning my house, I can just take off my glasses.

I've had laser-eye surgery with no complications whatsoever. And I know a few people with the same experience. It's basically as safe as getting a tooth filling nowadays.

Sure, there are cases of things going wrong, but the statistics say it's very safe.

It was the best money I've spent in my life so far. I couldn't recommend it highly enough, and wish I'd done it earlier.

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On 9/9/2016 at 1:41 PM, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Ninefingers,

Point one would seem to deflate the arugment that breaching copyright doesn't damaged book sales.

I don't follow. 

Based on this thread alone, it seems reasonably clear that most people have a preference for one or the other. If eBook preferrers see continued above market pricing* while at the same time finding increased ease of access to piracy, it's not the biggest stretch of imagination to think that some would change their choice from "buy ebook" to "pirate ebook". I could easily be wrong.

 

 

*my opinion, and worthy of a whole other discussion

 

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8 hours ago, baxus said:

I've had laser-eye surgery with no complications whatsoever. And I know a few people with the same experience. It's basically as safe as getting a tooth filling nowadays.

Sure, there are cases of things going wrong, but the statistics say it's very safe.

It was the best money I've spent in my life so far. I couldn't recommend it highly enough, and wish I'd done it earlier.

I had that, too, back in 2001, and it was the best $4000 I ever spent. I am sure that, by now, the procedure is safer and even more refined.

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