New research shows that the book-buying universe – both digital and printed – is expanding, not contracting
The most fascinating and, in many ways, cheering story of 2014 is almost wholly counterintuitive: the survival of the printed book. Turning pages back from digital grave shock! Legacy longform wins fight for life! Robert McCrum told part of the tale a couple of weeks back as he chronicled Waterstones’ battle into renewed profit. But you – the reader – seem to be writing new chapters month by month and Christmas by Christmas.
Nothing, of course, is settled as the broadband revolution rushes on. There is no conclusion, because there is no end to technical change. But one can, at least, reach an interim verdict. Five or so years ago, as Kindles, Nooks and the rest rode a surge of sales, you could find plenty of pundits and publishers shrugging despondently. Here we go again… We knew that conventional newspapers were supposed to be dying, like the forests they depended on. We knew that magazines were on the critical list. Who’d suppose that hard and soft covers would be any different?
But this is a human story. It involves human beings doing what they, often cussedly, do. And so all of the graphs and growth charts don ’t really matter – because, after a while, they reached a plateau. The rise of the ebook paused at around 30% of total customer sales, and stayed there. More, if you examine the underlying figures for, say, 2012 and 2013, stripping out the exceptional impact of Fifty Shades of Grey, then it is quite possible to conclude that the book-buying universe – digital and printed – is expanding, not contracting. It isn’t a question of either/or. It is a question of both: and a topic for particularly acute recent research from Enders Analysis.
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Nothing, of course, is settled as the broadband revolution rushes on. There is no conclusion, because there is no end to technical change. But one can, at least, reach an interim verdict. Five or so years ago, as Kindles, Nooks and the rest rode a surge of sales, you could find plenty of pundits and publishers shrugging despondently. Here we go again… We knew that conventional newspapers were supposed to be dying, like the forests they depended on. We knew that magazines were on the critical list. Who’d suppose that hard and soft covers would be any different?
But this is a human story. It involves human beings doing what they, often cussedly, do. And so all of the graphs and growth charts don ’t really matter – because, after a while, they reached a plateau. The rise of the ebook paused at around 30% of total customer sales, and stayed there. More, if you examine the underlying figures for, say, 2012 and 2013, stripping out the exceptional impact of Fifty Shades of Grey, then it is quite possible to conclude that the book-buying universe – digital and printed – is expanding, not contracting. It isn’t a question of either/or. It is a question of both: and a topic for particularly acute recent research from Enders Analysis.
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