Why? Sales figures show that, though paperbacks are all but history, hardbacks look surprisingly healthy.
From a story in the Guardian...
Moreover, the new data shows that, as book sales soar, it's the paperback that's in real trouble. During the first three months of 2012, 11.3 million paperbacks were sold, compared to 14.9 the previous year. Year on year, sales of paperbacks are down by almost 25%. Paperback chiefs are being fired. Supermarket editions such as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code will soon be a thing of the past. Simultaneously, the Pew Internet and American Life Project reveals that ebook consumers typically read more ebooks than their print-conscious predecessors. The latest sales figures for ebooks are off the chart.
Is this the end of civilisation as we know it? Certainly not. From another perspective, you might say this is a golden age of reading – with this difference. Everyone knows that digital screens are changing the way we read. Ebook buying and ebook reading is not like buying and reading traditional print through a bookshop. It's closer to browsing, and rarely involves the same reader-author loyalty. Where mass market paperbacks had the shelf life of fresh fish, ebooks redefine the meaning of ephemeral.
So where does this leave the future of the book? The sensible thing to observe at this moment is that, in the middle of a huge paradigm shift, no one knows anything.
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