{"id":4248,"date":"2012-01-26T23:23:44","date_gmt":"2012-01-26T23:23:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/butcherbaker.net\/wordpress\/?p=4248"},"modified":"2020-09-28T17:40:10","modified_gmt":"2020-09-28T17:40:10","slug":"ebook-reality-vs-optimism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/26\/ebook-reality-vs-optimism\/","title":{"rendered":"eBook Reality vs. Optimism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am on record as someone who believes the eBook will ultimately rule the waves &#8212; until the next &#8220;big thing&#8221; comes along. Sometimes it&#8217;s nice to get a little slap of reality.<br \/>\nA recent <a href=\"http:\/\/moconews.net\/article\/419-e-book-bummer-growth-slower-than-thought-incremental-not-exponenti\/\" title=\"E-Bool Bummer: Slower Growth than Thought\">study<\/a> by Bowker and the Book Industry Study Group shows that last year&#8217;s eBook growth was, as <a href=\"http:\/\/moconews.net\/bio\/19747\/\" title=\"Laura Hazard Owen\">Laura Hazard Owen<\/a> points out on <a href=\"http:\/\/moconews.net\/\" title=\"mocoNews.net\">mocoNews<\/a>, &#8220;Incremental, Not Exponential.&#8221;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;The number of book buyers who also purchased an e-book increased by 17 percent in 2011, compared to 9 percent in 2010 \u2013 well below the 25 to 30 percent growth that some had hoped for.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Seventy-four percent of book buyers have never bought an e-book (and 14 percent of those actually own an e-reader or tablet but choose not to use it to read e-books.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If there is cause for optimism, though, it&#8217;s in these two numbers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;E-books now make up 26 percent of <em>adult fiction<\/em> purchases, compared to 11 percent of children\u2019s book purchases and 3 percent of cookbook purchases.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Meanwhile, e-book power buyers make up 35 percent of the overall e-book buying population, but they drive <em>60 percent<\/em> of overall e-book purchases. In other words, about a third of the overall buyers drive two-thirds of overall purchases.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The latter figure compares to print power buyers, who make up 22 percent of the overall print book-buying population, and drive 53 percent of print book purchases overall. So there&#8217;s some room there for non-power buyers to make a larger overall contribution to eBook sales.<br \/>\nOh, and the other cause for optimism?<\/p>\n<p>Recent analysis from the esteemed Horace Dediu shows that if the iPad were its <a href=\"http:\/\/www.asymco.com\/2012\/01\/26\/the-year-of-the-ipad-for-the-second-year-in-a-row\/\" title=\"Horace Dediu: The year of the iPad for the second year in a row\">own company<\/a>, it &#8220;would be the largest PC vendor.&#8221; Dediu adds that the iPad &#8220;competes for time and purchase decisions across all computing alternatives and though many times it\u2019s additive, it is also substitutive and will become increasingly so.&#8221;<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.asymco.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/Screen-Shot-2012-01-26-at-1-26-9.39.32-AM.png\" alt=\"Horace Dediu: Units Shipped (iPad Included)\"><\/p>\n<p>Although analysts keep saying so, and it remains more promise than reality, I think that other companies will eventually add to the tablet market in ways they haven&#8217;t heretofore. Microsoft&#8217;s Windows 8 tablets (which they insist on calling slates; they&#8217;ll get over it), should be a credible entry in this category, for example.<\/p>\n<p>The takeaway here is that the PC will increasingly look like a tablet. Everything else will look like a <a href=\"http:\/\/news.cnet.com\/8301-13860_3-20006526-56.html\" title=\"Steve Jobs at D8: Post-PC era is nigh\">truck<\/a>. As the tablet becomes more ubiquitous, book purchases should follow; hey, you can carry a library on a single device and you can read almost anywhere (not recommended for the bath, but you can take them to bed).<\/p>\n<p>Yeah, ok&#8230; Still a long ways to go&#8230; One shouldn&#8217;t forget those seventy-four percent of book buyers who&#8217;ve never purchased an eBook. Or the format and distribution battles that don&#8217;t seem likely to end soon. But doesn&#8217;t that mean there&#8217;s plenty of upside? Doesn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am on record as someone who believes the eBook will ultimately rule the waves &#8212; until the next &#8220;big&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,26,30],"tags":[142,209,211,213,228,307,317,359,435,573],"class_list":["post-4248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-butcher-baker","category-publishing-2","category-technology","tag-butcher-baker-2","tag-ebook-reality-vs-optimism","tag-ebook-sales","tag-ebooks","tag-exponential","tag-incremental","tag-ipad-sales","tag-leland-e-hale","tag-power-book-purchasers","tag-walter-gilmour"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>eBook Reality vs. Optimism - Butcher Baker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lelandhale.com\/butcherbaker\/wordpress\/2012\/01\/26\/ebook-reality-vs-optimism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"eBook Reality vs. Optimism - Butcher Baker\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am on record as someone who believes the eBook will ultimately rule the waves &#8212; 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