Hey Amazon, print is not dead!
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Business, e-commerce on
Despite Amazon making it known that the ‘most gifted’ product bought from the US online store was the Kindle e-book reader with around half a million sold during the Xmas rush, I’m still not convinced that print is dead. Wounded, and perhaps seriously, but certainly not dead just yet.
Now I’m not mad, and I realise that when the likes of Rupert Murdoch start ponder how to monetise online news then things have reached a certain tipping point as far as publishing goes. But just because Amazon customers apparently bought more e-books than paperbacks and hardbacks on Xmas Day, the first time that the online retailer has reported such a thing, does not mean that no print sales were made.
Print is on the back foot in some markets, and news is almost certainly the main one amongst them for very good reason: the Internet is the obvious place to get your news from. Not only does it have the immediacy that news stories demand, in terms of both production of the story as well as consumption of it (I can access breaking news with equal ease at my desktop or on my iPhone) but it also bestows the kind of interactivity upon that news that even digital TV finds hard to match.
Yet when I buy a book I do not, I have to admit, do so in electronic format despite my owning a number of hardware devices capable of delivering that novel digitally. Why is this? Simply, and it’s the same argument that suggests to me that print will not die any time soon, because I do not feel comfortable reading a novel on my iPhone, netbook or even a Kindle. An eBook can deliver in terms of nerdy satisfaction, knowing that I can carry around a veritable library of titles in my pocket, but it cannot deliver in terms of reading enjoyment.
Reading a book on-screen is, to me, a flat and dull experience. I crave the smell and feel of the paper, I want to turn the page physically back and forth, I need to be able to crease a corner as a bookmark. Silly, I know, but I am most certainly not alone. Sure, as a published author (21 books and counting in my 20 year writing career) I have a vested interest in keeping print alive, not least because the royalties remain better than those offered for electronic product right now, but as a technology evangelist I also have a vested interest in moving with the times. Trouble is, it seems to me that technology has still not yet moved far enough to make eBooks a compelling purchase for the dedicated reader. Unfortunately, not only is the technology incapable of delivering that touch and feel experience that I, and others, crave but it fails to do so at a cost way in excess of buying the printed book.
Even if you remove the hardware cost from the equation, you still have the cost of the book itself. I’ve seen eBook versions of best sellers being sold at more than twice the cost of the hardback version for example, and that is just madness.
So congratulations Amazon, you have a runaway success with your Kindle. And congratulations Amazon, to sell more eBooks than print books is also amazing. But global media, let’s not forget that those sales were only on a single day and to extrapolate from that ‘print is dead’ is stretching credulity just a tad, no? Amazon is claiming no such thing, of course, after all it has loads of printed books to sell…
Rated: 100% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by napoleon - December 29, 2009 on 12:07 am
please i am resident in nigeria i want to become arich fruadster i need to learn from you my teacher either through mail or video mail
Pingback by - December 29, 2009 on 12:11 am
[…] IT PRO: Blogs: Davey Winder: Hey Amazon, print is not dead! www.itpro.co.uk/blogs/daveyw/2009/ – view page – cached , Despite Amazon making it known that the ‘most gifted’ product bought from the US online store was the Kindle e-book reader with around half a million sold […]
Comment by JF White - December 29, 2009 on 4:12 pm
At least economically, paper printed products are pretty much on the way to deadsville. As more and more publishers turn to digital production, paper-based books will become niche products. Niche products are more expensive to produce and market.
If you want to continue buying paper books, get ready to pay a *lot* more for that privilege. - J
Comment by - January 8, 2010 on 4:06 pm
I am waiting for publishers to offer a digital download of a book if you buy the dead tree edition. I have noticed it on blu-ray films I have bought recently and think it’s an excellent idea. Like you I love the feel and experience of reading a physical book but I read a lot and having a digital edition on my Sony eReader would be a great bonus - wouldn’t mind paying say 50p to £1 extra either. Then I could have a library full(er) plus the convenience of an e Reader.
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