Has Digital’s Tipping Point Finally Arrived?

This month, Amazon.com announced that it had sold more Kindle books than print books marking a first in site’s successful book sales history. As you may know, the bookseller began selling books in 1995 and in 2007 introduced its e-reading device, Kindle, on a gamble that e-Books might become popular at some point.

By July 2010, Amazon reported that Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales and, six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Together, Kindle titles now outsells all print books, including hardcover and paperback combined.

What’s driving e-Books Anyway?

Reason #1: Easier to purchase. Businesses and consumers want to reach out and acquire information when they need it. It’s a whole lot easier to go online and purchase an e-Book than to get into your automobile and drive to a bookstore.

Reason #2: e-Books don’t chop down trees. As everyone becomes more ecologically minded, saving our precious resources becomes more important. It’s nice to hold a book in your hand, but it’s also nice to hold a Kindle or iPad in your hand and read a book! [This is about perceptions, despite the pro-paper sustainability argument and e-waste concerns.]

Reason #3: It’s easier to keep an e-Book with you. If you’re an avid reader you might have one to five books you are currently in the process of reading. e-Books allow you to “carry” them with you without the bulk that printed books bring.

Reason #4: You can make digital notes and bookmark them. It’s very nice to be able to highlight a passage or make a note in an e-Book knowing that you can always go back and review your highlights and notes quickly and easily. With printed books, dog-earing has long been a way to mark the spot of favorite passages, but it does impact the book’s appearance. Not so with e-Books.

Reason #5: You can search the text and get instant results. With an e-Book, you can quickly search by word or phrase to locate the specific book passage that you remembered, but couldn’t recall the page number it was on.

I’m sure there are many other practical advantages to e-Books than I’ve itemized here. If you think of some, be sure to share them by posting a Comment!

Having watched the progression from print to digital to online over the past 25 years, it has become fairly obvious that digital has found a prominent place in both the business and consumer markets—and that is not going to change. So if you are engaged in the print business, be warned: If you ignore the obvious market dynamics, you do so at your own peril.

Tom Wants to Hear Your Branding Issues:
If you are a printing company or product/services company serving the print-media market and would like to be considered for a feature in this blog, please contact Tom Marin for an interview.

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