This week's stats about the book industry show
that somehow book publishers have avoided the downfall that music publishers experienced
when their customers went digital. Maybe it's because the digital era meant
that people not only pirated music but also only bought specific tracks instead
of whole albums, whereas with books you generally have to buy the full thing.
Although there was huge growth in e-reading ( up 149%), physical book sales only went down by 1%, and certain genres within that, such as children's books, actually grew.
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I can see why publishers felt
threatened by e-reading, but I didn't understand why this was ever an issue for
readers. I have a slight preference towards e-books mainly because they're more
environmentally friendly, but essentially I'm in it for the content regardless
of the medium. Sometimes I buy paper books because I don't want to see
bookstores completely disappear from the streets.
