Priced Out

[Cal Carpenter]

137. That's simply not true

"the death of regular books has been a given for at least five years now."


That's just not the case.

In the first few years of e-readers, the book market did change very rapidly, with e-books grabbing up tons of market share. But since then, the overall growth of e-books has begun to plateau, and (I forget the specific #s) the majority of people who got hooked on new e-readers switched back to print books for about %50 of their reading after one year of using the e-reader.

The number of folks who use e-readers exclusively is significant, but it is not rising much anymore, and those who do both formats are leaning back toward print books.

Children's print books are a particularly healthy part of the market, growing pretty steadily, along with young adult and various types of adult fiction and more serious nonfiction.

E-books are very strong in terms of certain genres like romance, fantasy, mystery, etc - things that are more mass market. Also, most self-published books are primarily sold in e-book form but very few of those become big sellers anyway. Textbooks are also basically a lost cause for bricks and mortar stores because of online discount retailers. Other categories ebb and flow but there is no basis to claim that print books and small bookstores are dying overall. In fact, small independent bookstores are making a pretty serious (and so far, successful) comeback the last few years in many places around the country.

I helped a friend do a lot of research on this not too long ago, so I assure you I'm not talking out my ass, although I don't have links handy.