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What a Difference (Almost) a Year Makes?

Written on: June 2nd, 2010 by: in Blog Posts

In this blog post from last year, I summarized some findings from a Book Industry Study Group report about book buying habits of the general public, which discussed online impulse buying of popular titles as a significant driver of commerce- with my note that several tools exist to expedite your ability as a consumer to check library holdings before spending the average $10/book for an online purchase.

This most recent BISG report shows the dramatic shift in consumer behavior toward “pure” ebook purchasing. Last year, this was barely mentioned and the main issue at hand was online purchasing of ink-and-paper books. In the past year, ebook purchases have risen from just over 1% to more than 5% of the entire market- and a significant percentage of ebook buyers purchased their first ebook within the past year:

Thirty-seven percent of e-book buyers bought their first digital book within the last six months. Because so many consumers are only beginning to develop the habit of buying e-books, publishers have an opportunity to shape expectations about such things as pricing and the timing of digital releases.

Among e-book buyers, 25 percent said they bought fewer print books than before. Fifteen percent said they buy no print books, and 9 percent said they wouldn’t buy a print book even if the title they wanted wasn’t available digitally. This shift means publishers will be forced to reduce print runs, resulting in higher per-copy costs.

E-book purchases have been increasing among higher-income consumers, but not among those who are less affluent. To continue growing the market, publishers must find a way to make e-books accessible to those with lower incomes.

With special reference to the last point above- while the Delaware Division of Libraries and Delaware’s public libraries are making ebooks and e-audiobooks increasingly available, and continuing to investigate development of collections suitable for mobile devices and readers, we’re also committed to finding better ways to provide tangible items to our customers, remembering that in these economically difficult times, middle and low- income people have increasingly been dependent on public library services for entertainment, education, and employment resources of all kinds, including books and movies! In an attempt to increase the speed that popular items become available to people who have requested them, we recently revised a number of circulation rules- as of about a week ago, DVDs now circulate for only a week, and items will only be held for a library user who has requested them for 4 days before being made available to the next requester.

Publishing consultant Michael Cairns made this presentation a couple of weeks ago at an industry conference, outlining the trends and challenges of epublishing: