E-readers, they are new innovation currently taking the
publishing world by storm, more and more Americans appear to be jumping on the
e-reader bandwagon. On August 2010 poll by Harris Interactive revealed that 8
percent of Americans were using e-readers and about 12 percent planned to do so
in the next six months. This is good news for makers of e-readers, which
continue to advance the technology by making these devices lighter, faster and
smarter. But the booming sales of e-readers don't necessarily translate to a
decline in sales of traditional books. For example, Amazon.com's January 2011
news about e-books outselling paperbacks came on top of reports of continued
growth in paperback sales. The situation, however, is a bit different for some
traditional bookstores. Borders, a national chain of bookstores, declared
bankruptcy in February 2011, reporting that it will refocus on e-book and
e-reader sales in order to save the company. Considering the growing popularity
of e-readers, sales of traditional books may eventually decline. In fact, the
entire world of book publishing may be headed for a radical transformation.
It's unlikely that traditional books will ever become completely obsolete. They
simply need to find a new place alongside their cool new cousin, the e-readers.
Digitization has revolutionized the publishing industry, by
allowing readers to have multiple books without lugging around huge amounts of
heavy books. It also has increased the amount of books that people read, the average
reader of e-books says they have read 24 books in the past 12 months, compared
with an average of 15 books by a non-e-book consumer. But while digitization has been good for part
of the publishing industry it is also affecting it. "The book publishing
industry has entered a period of long-term decline because of the rising sales
of e-book readers," reads an April 28 research note from IHS iSuppli,
which predicted a decrease in book revenue at a compound annual rate of three percent
through 2014-a reversal from the period between 2005 and 2010, when revenue
rose.
For most companies like amazon and Barnes & Noble have capitalized
on e-readers and are using the new innovations to help their companies stay
afloat in these hard times. They have a major stake in the success of e-readers
but at the same time use the paperback sales to help them keep revenue up for
the stores. Unlike Borders who had to declare bankruptcy because of the
declining sales of books, which is making them rethink and get in on the e book
market. These companies will continue to put their money into the success of
e-readers and eBooks but at the same time still using paperbacks because books
will never stop selling because people value still having hard copies instead
of digital ones.
The last focus for E-readers is for the authors. With eBooks,there is no end to the number of copies immediately available, and the venues
are fewer, meaning directing your target market to your available book is even
simpler, and with the advent of viral internet marketing techniques, becomes
possible even without the backing of a corporation. This has affected the
publishing industry, by leveling the playing field. Publishing in print is
obviously still very important to your success, but proper self-marketing of a
novel in eBook form can help make sure that you can show publishing houses that
there is, in fact, a real market and demand for your book. Another thing
authors can be happy about is that they can post a downloadable electronic book
for sale on a major eBook publishing site, and shows that the long tail method
works no matter what, there is always still some market for a media text.
Even those there have been many excuses for why text is better than the digital form e-readers and digital books are slowly taking over. There have been many argue against speed and retention against digital books but has been dis proven time and time again. This may keep some people away from it but with Americas slow but sure conversion to technology the more print will dramatically shift itself and become online material.
http://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2012/03/21/speed-and-retention-are-e-readers-slower-and-more-forgetful/
