Sunday, February 17, 2013

Used Book Sales - It's Getting Harder to Find the Newest Books of Your Favorite Novelists

The digital age of eBooks is progressing and evolving quite dramatically. I am not sure if you have been following all this but there have been DOJ cases and monopoly investigations and lawsuits over companies, plus search engines scanning old books. So far, there have been nearly 100 million eBook reader type personal tech devices sold now. Hey, as an author of eBooks, I'm all in, as in; "Bring it On!" I say.

The other day, I had an old friend come by my place, and he said; "wow, you have a lot of books," and then he said "soon this place will look like a museum," because no one is going to have actual books in the future, only eBooks you see.

Indeed, that's funny, but it's also very true isn't it? But guess what, the used bookstores are starting to dwindle, and they don't have as many newer books as they used to, and I have a theory as to why. You see, many novelists, my favorite ones included still come out with several new novels per year, but most of these books are sold electronically, not as hardback or paperback books in the big box bookstores. So, if fewer actual books are sold each consecutive quarter moving forward, there will be fewer used books available, and the gap could be over 50%, as in many cases 50% of these books are now sold directly via the Internet to eBook readers.

Now then, let's say that you have all the books by a certain author. Perhaps you collect romance novels, spy novels, true crime, detective, science fiction, horror, or historical fiction and you have certain authors where you have every single book that they have written. You have them prominently displayed on your library at home. You make sure to buy books that are damaged from the used bookstore, so that they look good on the bookshelf, and it is a sense of pride and a great conversational piece with your friends that come over to your home.

Can you see how this might be much more difficult in the future, and this is something very common amongst well-read fans of the top authors. In the future, this may not be possible unless you are willing to pay full price at the bookstore, but that can run you thousands of dollars a year, considering many of these books from the top novelists are quite expensive if you buy them new in the store.

This will limit the number of books you can read, or feel that you can or should afford. Eventually, you may be forced to get an eBook reader, and get all your books electronically as is the popular trend right now, and I expect that it will continue. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.

Lance Winslow has launched a new provocative series of eBooks, complilations of Book Reviews. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank; http://www.worldthinktank.net/

No comments:

Post a Comment