New Survey of Book-Buying Trends

How will changing technology affect readers, writers, and the book industry of the future? We can all speculate, but here's some hard data from a recent survey of book-buying behavior. Among other things, the survey addresses the growth of the ebook market. A few highlights:

• People reading 5 or more hours per week are considered "avid readers," and there are an estimated 62.4 million of these avid readers in the United States.
• 52% of respondents said they were “not at all likely” to purchase an e-reader.
• When book buyers were asked their preferred location to buy a book 23% preferred indie stores, 22% preferred chains, and 21% preferred online retailers.
• 42% of respondents said they were at least somewhat likely to buy a bundled package that includes a print book and a digital version. 35% responded “Not sure” to this question.

What do you think will happen with print books and ebooks?

Image: Book People Bookstore, Austin, TX

Introducing TED Books

This may be the future of publishing—ebooks by intellectual luminaries explaining a great idea in 20,000 words or less for a mere $2.99. As Seth Godin pointed out in a recent talk on the new dynamics of publishing, the fact that most hardcover books have been between 200 and 400 pages (and cost $24.99 for that matter) is no more than a historical accident—that's how lengthy books needed to be to be worth publishing. But that was way back in 2010. With ebooks, page count has no economic impact. As a non-fiction reader who has read many an 'idea' book that starts off strong but then just repeats itself for the last hundred pages (yes, Thomas Friedman I'm talking about you), I say, hurray!

Read more about TEDBooks here.

Alice for the iPad

Will the iPad finally fulfill the 1990s vision of interactive 'books'?

Covers still matter

So sayeth the New York Times:

"...Even in the digital era, publishers believe that books need graphic representations — if only for the online marketing campaign. Regardless of the format, “they all seem to need what we know of as a cover to identify them,” said Chip Kidd, associate art director at Alfred A. Knopf. Mr. Kidd has designed more than 1,000 jackets for authors including Cormac McCarthy and James Ellroy.

The music industry went through a similar transition when digital music devices arrived, but it has pushed back by finding fresh ways to display CD cover art on the Web sites where the songs are bought and the iPod screens where they are played. Publishers have already had some experience tailoring book jackets for the digital world, since so many people now buy even their print copies online..."

Read the rest of the article here.

The magazine r(e)imagined

Will e-magazines be like this? I sure hope so!

Or maybe Blio software and the Mac Tablet will save book design...?

From the Blio website:

Books, the way they were intended.

Unlike other eReaders, Blio preserves your book’s printed format, including layout, fonts, and images true to the book’s original form, and in color. Now, fully enjoy the subtlety of design originally intended by the publisher.

Blio offers a large selection of books that otherwise don’t translate well into eContent: especially cookbooks, travel guides, how-to books, schoolbooks, and children’s stories.

More on the Blio in this NPR article and on their website.

However, most eReaders are still rather ugly. But according to this Wired article that quotes cover designer Henry Sene Yee, the situation is most likely temporary,

The devices’ limitations are mostly because they are in their early stages. For instance, color e-book readers are not likely to be widely available until at least mid-2010. And the current black-and-white displays offer readers no choice beyond increasing or decreasing font size.

As e-book readers get more popular they will get more sophisticated, bringing in a new crop of designers that understand a changing world of digital publishers.

“People want more than just plain text and the technology will have to change and keep up with this need,” says Sene Yee. “It won’t stay ugly forever.”

Kill the Kindle...? hmm.

Cover designer Charles Brock obviously hates them, but I'm not sure how I feel about e-readers like the Kindle. Perhaps book covers will go the way of the record sleeve. Who knows? Either way, creativity will always have a place even in a paperless digital world.