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The loss of bricks-and-mortar bookstores did not translate into growth of e-books in 2011, according to a report released this week by media forecast and research firm Simba Information.
“It may go against common sense, but the loss of hundreds of physical bookstores and several million square feet of book retailing space in 2011 actually negatively affected the expansion of e-book usage,” said Michael Norris, senior analyst of Simba Information’s Trade Books Group. “The publishing industry can either continue to watch its business get smaller through this unsustainable pattern or find ways to allow in-person discovery of content work in favor of the physical stores that are paying for that discovery to be available.”
Data from Simba’s fourth edition of Trends in Trade Book Retailing [1] shows that most consumers continue to buy print books, and the discovery of e-books is still very much interconnected with that of physical content. The report also indicates that the more retail channels consumers have access to, the more likely they are to be book buyers and leisure book readers. With physical bookstores still ‘subsidizing’ the online channel by acting as a showroom for content, Simba said, the industry must think of creative ways to build a sustainable system.
A Bowker study of recreational travelers in the U.S. and U.K [2]. has found that buyers of travel guidebooks are much more likely to travel outside their home country than general book buyers, and they prefer printed guidebooks to help them get the most out of their exotic destinations.
“Travel publishing is at a crossroads. As consumers’ use of the Internet and digital books grows, travel publishers have been investing in developing e-books, apps and websites,” said Jo Henry, director of Bowker Market Research.
Among the study’s other revelations:
Bowker’s 2012 U.K. and U.S. Travel Reports also explore the behavior and attitudes of travelers who are non-guidebook buyers and non-book buyers.
E-books from Tom Doherty Associates, the publisher of Tor and Forge, are now available DRM-free from most major e-book retailers. In an announcement last Friday, the publisher said that the new DRM-free editions would be available from retailers that have sold Tor e-books in the past but now would also be sold through retailers that sell only DRM-free books.
“It’s clear to us that this is what our customers want,” said Doherty senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden. “We see it in the success of SF publishers like Baen and Angry Robot that have preceded us in going DRM-free. To the best of our knowledge we’re the first division of a Big Six publishing conglomerate to go down this road, but we doubt very much that we’ll be the last.”
The publisher’s plans to go DRM-free were announced in April.
The longlist of 12 finalists for the 2012 Man Booker Prize [3] were announced this week. The prize recognizes the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland.
The 12 books on the longlist are:
The shortlist of six authors will be announced September 11, 2012, and the winner will be announced at a dinner at London’s Guildhall on October 16, in a ceremony covered by the BBC.
Links:
[1] http://storage.broadcastnewsroom.com/article/Loss-of-Bookstores-Doesnt-Translate-Into-E-Book-Growth:-Simba-Information--2116371
[2] http://www.bowker.com/en-US/aboutus/press_room/2012/pr_07232012.shtml
[3] http://www.themanbookerprize.com/news/2012-longlist-announced