In a meeting this AM one of my colleagues wondered aloud how close we were to having a majority of books available online. The consensus was not very close yet, and Walt Crawford happened to offer some statistics today to corroborate that. And in a segue that would only happen in my mind, BoingBoing also offers a reason why pbooks aren’t going away immediately.
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3 Responses to “ebooks vs pbooks”
As delighted as I am to be cited, the statistics I quoted don’t have much to do with whether a majority of books are available online–for example, none of the Project Gutenberg or Open Content Alliance or out-of-copyright Google Book Search books count toward book *sales* at all, but they’re all books (or book contents) available online. And some contemporary publishers do make ebook editions available at the same time as pbook editions. The pbook might outsell the ebook 100:1 (I have no real figures), but the ebook’s still available.
I wonder (but do not know) whether Book Industry Study Group or, for a narrower segment of publishers, AAP might have figures as to what proportion of new book titles are also available as ebooks? I’d guess it’s significantly higher than the proportion of *sales.*
Loved the BoingBoing ad!
Livres imprimés v/s livres électroniques
Deux photos humoristiques qui montrent un avantage incontestable des livres imprimés sur les livres électroniques :
A book will never let you down
Vu sur The Distant Librarian
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You’re right, Walt. I was only trying to show that there are still lots of books in print…