From: Sandy Thatcher <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2012 10:00:39 -0500
From what I hear, though, is that the kinds of books that are popular
as e-books tend to be much more popular fiction than academic books,
and sales of the latter have not yet reached the level for university
presses (as a % of overall sales) that they have for trade fiction
publishers. This is partly because devices like the Kindle do not
handle complex textual material (tables, figures, equations, etc.)
well.
Sandy Thatcher
> From: Jim O'Donnell <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Thu, 5 Apr 2012 21:10:10 -0400
>
> Rise in E-Book Readership Is Good News for Reading Over All, Report Says
> By Jennifer Howard
>
> More Americans are reading e-books than ever before, on more kinds of
> devices, a new report from the Pew Research Center has found. That
> news won't come as a shock, given the rapid spread of e-readers and
> tablet computers and the rise of e-content. What might be a surprise,
> though: The report contains good news for print lovers, too. Readers
> of e-books like to read in all formats, they favor print books for
> sharing and to read to children, and on average they read more books
> over all than print-only readers do. "They're heavier readers. They're
> more frequent readers," said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet
> & American Life Project, the group behind the report. "These devices
> have allowed them to scratch that itch." The report, "The Rise of
> e-Reading," analyzes findings from a survey of almost 3,000 people
> nationwide in November and December 2011 , along with data from
> follow-up surveys of about 2,000 people in January and February 2012.
> Twenty-one percent of respondents reported, as of February 2012, that
> they had read an e-book in the past year. That figure was up from 17
> per cent in December 2011, before the holiday surge in purchases of
> e-readers and tablets. The average e-book reader said he or she had
> read 24 books (electronic and print) in the past 12 months. Those who
> didn't read e-books averaged 15 books over the same time period.
>
> <snip>
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