Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
In the US, 20 percent of the population are estimated to have purchased an e-book last year, compared to 30 percent who bought a printed book.
China is the only country of those studied that saw the opposite trend, with only 24 percent of people having bought a printed book in the 12 months prior to the survey, while around 27 percent of people bought an e-book in that time frame.
Looking at forecasts for the book market on a worldwide scale, Statista analysts predict that while e-books have grown in popularity, they will not be the final nail in the coffin of printed books but rather a complementary product that should ultimately benefit the publishing industry.
I used to prefer printed books ( technical and fiction ) until I ran out of bookshelf space a few years ago. E-books as a substitute are not that bad really, once you get used to the format..
As a Brit who has retired to France, ebooks are a godsend. But I still visit my local bookshop on my visits back to England.
I suspect that it’s rarely an either/or. In particular, in the UK I imagine that most people who purchase e-books also purchase physical books. This makes the UK quite a literary country.
Not sure how common it is, but some publishers give you a free on-line copy if you buy the paper version so you have both forms of access.
Not a big fan of e-books, much more satisfying to read a ‘real’ book. Also still prefer printed manuals to the PDF versions but they have almost completely gone now 🙁
Yeah – just been repairing my MX-5 and rather than be able to buy a Haynes manual (which apparently are rubbish nowadays anyway) had to print off umpteen pages from the official manual someone had pirated onto a website.