Amazon has announced that it now has more ebook downloads than actual book sales. The actual statement they made was "Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books. Since the beginning of the year, for every 100 paperback books Amazon has sold, the company has sold 115 Kindle books. Additionally, during this same time period the company has sold three times as many Kindle books as hardcover books.”
Now, there is a slight bit of sophistry, because it means that for every 115 kindle ebooks sold, there are 138 physical books which Amazon has sold. And, i am not sure if this includes marketplace sales or not which i believe is 30% of all amazon sales (though this is not just books, but extrapolating that...) Which means another 108 books sold which are all likely to be physical. So, the real numbers are more like 115 ebooks to 246 physical books, making less than a third of all sales being electronic.
However, whatever I might prove with these numbers, the reality is that the e-book industry is only going to grow. And I am perhaps a bit old fashioned in still wanting to retain the physical book. There is a certain joy in holding a book in your hand and bending the pages which I believe cannot be matched. There is a joy in rummaging through a stack of old books and finding something you have been looking for which a Google search cannot replace.
I remember how kicked I was to find T.S Elliot’s “Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats” in an old road somewhere within Bricklane a year ago; and how I absolutely loved reading about Mungojerrie and Griddlebone (those of you who have read Macavity will know what i am talking about)- twenty years after I first wanted to. And it’s why i almost always visit Manney’s everytime I am back in Pune and have always visited the Strand book festival when I was in Bombay. Unfortunately, I have had no chance of going to the Calcutta book festival...but someday.
I do realize that it is an old fashioned view. Google search does have its advantages. I was able to find “And yet I don’t know”, a poem which Riyaz Bharucha, a senior at school had recited at our elocution contest on August 15th, 1989. I can still remember him going “and yet i don’t know and yet i don’t know...”. And it was because of search I was able to find this gem again. And yes, I did read it online...and it was fabulous.
But then, it was a one page poem, not a book! How can one read 200 pages electronically! I don’t know and as long as physical books are so easily available, do i really need to find out? Many years ago, I installed Microsoft Reader on my work PC and read a lot of stuff on it but it just didn’t seem right. Maybe the kindle is different...but i am sceptical – sceptical enough not to spend the £150 for it.
So, as a via media, I have today downloaded Kindle for Android on my HTC. Read a few of Aesop’s fables on it and I must admit it was not a great feeling. Perhaps I need to read more...and I shall try. Admittedly, it is sub optimal but worth a try. However, I am not complacent of an imminent change in consumer behaviour. Let’s see. Maybe it will need Graphene to drive that change.
But I am sure many of you have already changed your behaviour and I would love to hear from you on how easy you found the transition.
Just to round off on a different note, while the announcement of more ebook sales than physical sales is a momentous one, I read a small article in City AM which is perhaps equally momentous – I believe China now consumes more gold than India. And India has been knocked off its top perch after god knows how long. The year still has some time to go, so I would urge all of you in India – go out and buy gold...you have a national duty to do so now :)
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