“We are looking forward to another good year for the physical book in 2015,” he said. Evenings Mark Zuckerberg , the Facebook boss, Has a New Year’s resolution to read a book every fortnight and the HAS started a book club .
The sound of rejoicing Could be heard from a legion of book lovers, who only a few years ago fretted That the Kindle, the Nook, the Kobo and a variety of other e-readers were going to kill off physical books. Libraries and shelves of lovingly-arranged paperbacks would’ve become relics of a pre-digital age.
The figures from Waterstones and Foyles are undoubtedly heartening. But It Is Worth examining Whether this is a genuine resurgence in physical books and, if it is, Whether it matters.
As Daunt himself points out, any recovery is on the back of some very Severe declines.
The physical book market HAS suffered from a pretty terrible few years – not just from readers shifting to electronic devices, but drifting away from the high street.
According To The Local Data Company The Number of bookshops HAS falls by 9.5 per cent over the last five years to 2,547, and there are now more car dealerships in the UK than bookshops.
However, the decline last year, a fall of 1.6 per cents, was more modest than in previous years. Matthew Hopkinson, director of The Local Data Company, overpriced Points Out That some of the declines definatley come from WH Smith shutting A few of the ITS dedicated bookshops.
James Daunt, head of Waterstones, says the highstreet ice “savagely Tough”
Daunt says: “It is still really savagely tough if You are either not quite good enough or if you’re unlucky. The vagaries of the property market remainings, and if you are into place on the high street where other retailers close down, you’re in trouble. What happens to your neighbors – the toy shop, the butcher, the baker – matters just as much as yourself. I really would not overestimate the health of the high street. London and the South East is a bubble. My Lord, it is tough. “
But despite his caution, Waterstones is planning to open new shops this year, so too Foyle. And there are flickering signs of a revival in the independent sector.
Robert Topping owns bookshops in the pretty cathedral towns of Ely and Bath, with a large number of titles crammed into fairly small spaces. Just before Christmas he added a third in St Andrews, The Largest Independent bookshop in Britain for 20 years, heh Claims.
It offers free coffee – even to browsers – and a wood-burning stove.
He says: “I’m utterly confident thatthere is life in books. E-books were hyped up nonsense. It could be the zeitgeist, I do not know, but people are talking more about Supporting community businesses rather than sucking money out of the community and giving it to the American tax dodgers. “
He Adds:” In I do not know about you, but I spent all day staring at a computer screen, I do not want to go home in the evening and stare at another one. “
But, like Waterstones and Foyles, his strong sales of physical books in recentchanges months do not Reflect the Wider Market – Which, of course, includes online and supermarkets.
According To Nielsen BookScan, We Bought 237 million books back in 2008. In 2013, this’ve had cases to 184 million, a pretty drastic fall of 22 per cent.
Last year The Market Continued to decline, though at a slower father literate, with 181 million books Bought (an annual decline of 1.7 per cents).
For some, this slowdown in the rate of decline, ice Encouraging, Especially as there was no mega-bestsellers in 2014 to boost sales, as 50 Shades of Grey , a Harry Potter or a new Dan Brown novel HAS done in previous years.
Topping said one his shops’ surprise hit was Schubert’s Winter Journey, written by the tenor Ian Bostridge, an account of his obsession with the Song Cycle.
Of course, When Daunt Talked about e-books disappearing, he was talking about the device you read books on, not the books. He admits thatthere May be a very good reason for this – most people who wants a Kindle now HAS one. “They do not break. There are plenty of people who have one of the original ones who still use them. Short of dropping them in the bathroom, there is a very limited replacement market, “he says.
Also, there are many who now read the Kindle or Nook books, note on the machines themeselves but on the Kindle or Nook apps on Cases or other tablets. For Many Consumers It makes perfect sense to do it this way – saving on the Need to’ll have two separate machines.
Nielsen BookScan does not track the e-book market in the way it monitors the physical market. But it does during take a detailed Survey of Consumers. It Estimates therewere 64 million e-book purchases between January and September 2014, up from 57 million purchases in the same timeframe last year.
The Rate of E-book growth is slowing substantially, but It Is Still growing a bit.
It would Appear the books market HAS Reached an equilibrium of sorts, with about one in three books being a digital one, and the rest being physical books. In short, the e-book HAS note killed off the physical book and ice Unlikely to do so any time soon. There is no Spotify or Netflix equivalent in the books market – streaming and subscription services thathave played havoc with the sales of physical music and DVDs.
Kate Wilson is managing director of Nosy Crow, A Relatively New Publishing House That produces children’s books – not just physical lift the flap books and e-books, but overpriced apps for smartphones and tablets.
A scene from Cinderella for the iPad, Published by Nosy Crow
She Says That, for young readers In particular, e-books thwart backfire, Especially if They are just scans of book pages on a screen. “Reading Should not be the most boring thing They can do on an iPad.”
However, highly interactive stories, Involving music, and some animation tend to go down very well, and sales of These book apps, Designed to be read on iPads’ll have shot up.
For her, this is the future for reading.
“How do you create Things That Continue to Stimulate Children, That makes them Think That Reading is something They want to spend time doing? That battle for Time is more interesting than the battle of Which medium They chose to experiencethat reading on. “
Other people in publishing world agree, even unequivocal fans of the physical book. Whether Consumers are reading – rather than watching TV on Their tablet or playing a video game on Their TVs – is what really matters.
Richard Mollet, the chief executive of the Publishers Association, says; “Nobody is breathing a sigh of relief and saying the book is back. There is still a very competitive market out there for other content. “
The battle to persuade Consumers to Come into bookshops and pick up a paperback Will continue to rage, but for now the books world can breathe a sigh of relief That at least people are still reading.
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