This question comes via my former client, and brilliant writer, Jennifer Hubbard.
For those of you who now have an e-reader, how have your book buying habits changed? Did you instantly convert to almost all e-reading? Do you still buy print books? Is it 50/50? Did you give up on the e-reader?
Poll below, if you’re reading in an RSS feed or by e-mail you’ll need to click through to see the poll:
Amy Lynn says
I read most of my classic literature on my e-reader, and depending on the price, I sometimes buy a book released in hardcover as an e-book, and buy the paperback when it comes out the next year.
If Borders does go bankrupt, I expect my small town location will close. If that happens, I will probably start buying more e-books, instead of driving over an hour to the next closest bookstore!
TERI REES WANG says
Novels = eBooks
Self-help/discussion = paper books
…hand written notes, underline quotations, and skipping and back tracking, and the passing on.
Cheers!
Laraine Herring says
I read so much more after buying my Kindle. If the book isn't available that way, I have to really want it to buy it in print. I'm not anti-print, I just have a hard time seeing type anymore, and the Kindle lets me increase the size. I had missed reading so much, and the e-reader has given me that back.
Mira says
E-books only. I love e-books. I love the back-lit screen and that I can carry multiple books everywhere.
My purchasing has gone way, way up. I counted, and I buy approximately three books weekly now, when I used to buy 3-4 books monthly.
I think that's partly impluse buying. I read alot of series, and I love the fact that when I finish one book in the series, I can have the next in my hot little hands within three minutes.
Sometimes I find a book that I can't buy on Kindle, and it makes me mad.
I go to Amazon's main site, and I click on the "tell the publisher you want this book available in Kindle" button. Then I notice who the publisher is and send irritated thoughts their way, like 'don't you want my money? I would have bought all 12 books in the series, you doofus!' and things like that.
But I won't buy the print version – I don't want to carry books around anymore. So, I stick with the tons of books I can buy on e-books.
Lisa Yarde says
I buy mostly ebooks; sorry, I'm one of those instant gratification people, but for favorite authors, I still buy the paperback edition.
Marilyn Peake says
I buy mostly e-books but some print books too. Have you seen this article? – Authors catch fire with self-published e-books. I find that fascinating!
Word Verification: "restedit" – Is that when a writer takes a break from editing?
Zoe says
I got my first ebook reader two years ago (my first reader was a Sony, and now I use a Nook); since then I've switched almost entirely to ebooks. The only books I buy on paper are reference books, how-to books, humor books that it's better to flip through than read in one sitting (like the Anguished English books), and books that aren't available as ebooks. I like having all my books in one place, I love being able to change the font and adjust the size, I love having a search function, and the convenience is great – no need to wait for Amazon shipping, or to drive half an hour to the bookstore only to find out they don't have the book I want.
The main downside is the price – before ebooks I bought paperbacks, not hardcovers, so a $9.99 ebook is more expensive than the $7.99 I'm used to for a paperback.
J. Rosemary Moss says
I read much more since I got my Kindle! It's easier to buy books now, and they're often less expensive than they would be in a bookstore.
And even before my Kindle, I read many niche-market e-books. Now I can buy those more easily as well.
reader says
Slightly OT:
Hey, Nathan, can you do a question about what type of e-reader people are using at some point?
I'm hoping to get one this summer, but don't know if I should do Kindle or Nook, and would rather listen to first hand experience than the advertisements.
J=C says
I was worried when I bought my Kindle that I'd miss the physicality of the dead wood medium, but that has not proven to be the case at all. Most of what I read now is in electronic format with occasional exceptions for new books where the e-book is priced at Hardcover levels or where publishers haven't sorted out electronic editions yet.
I bought the Hardcover of 'Way of Kings' last year and I found dealing with the size and weight of it to be infuriating.
Whilst I would not commit to never buying print editions again, my preference has swung completely around, much to the relief of my poor overworked bookshelves.
Steve says
I've bought about a dozen self-published books on the Kindle. Never bought a self-published book in my life before this. Haven't liked any of them, but it's no big deal since they were not expensive.
salazarbooks.com says
Hi,
There isn't the choice in the UK unless you have a kindle.
I often look for an ePub version of a book first – can't find one and go for print. Or the ebook version is a couple of pounds more than the print version.
I have filled up on books from project Guttenberg – lots of HG Wells and Jules Verne.
Marilyn Peake says
At this point in time, I buy mostly e-books but some print books too.
Speaking of e-books, have you seen this article? – Authors catch fire with self-published e-books. I find that fascinating!
LOL. Word Verification is "restedit". Is "rest edit" when a writer or editor takes a break from editing?
Cab Sav says
Buy the same amount of paper books as I did before I got my eReader, but now I buy eBooks as well, and more than the paper books, because they're more affordable. So I've more than doubled my reading.
Buy a lot more from boutique publishers. Still buy a paper version if I like the book well enough as an eRead.
Elizabeth says
I buy a lot more non-fiction in ebook format, but stick with paper books for fiction. I found out early on that I didn't enjoy reading as much when I was reading on an e-reader. No clue why, but I couldn't connect with stories the same way.
Karla says
I got an e-reader and an iPhone about a year ago. Since then, I've bought over 60 e-books, but my print book purchases haven't gone down at all. I love the convenience and ease of e-books (both buying and reading them) but I still adore shopping for paperbacks.
Beatriz Kim says
I've been resisting the ebooks phenomenon, but now I feel convinced that buying one may just be more convenient than carrying a several books everywhere I go.
Thanks for the post.
veela-valoom says
I'm planning to almost 100% switch to ebooks, though in reality it may be 90% due to preferring to have complete sets of series & trilogies.
I'm reading more classics because they are free and actually I think I'm buying more books. I tend to be a library-user due to the convenience. Before I go to the local library I can check online and see what books they have, where they are shelved, even request the book at the closest branch. At bookstores you never know what they're going to have and as far as ordering online I really don't like paying shipping.
So maybe this means I'm lazy (or I just don't like waiting for books). But so far I've bought books that either my library didn't have or where the previous book left me on a cliffhanger. I foresee buying more books but almost all electronically.
I still use the library but when I need immediate gratification I turn to my Kindle.
christine zoe palau says
For classics the Kindle is awesome. It's also nice for books whose authors I don't have a thing for. But for writers I love, I always buy the hardcover as soon as it comes out.
Donna says
Love E-reading because I can easily size the print to however well my eyes are working, how light it is, etc. Very easy to read in bed-main disadvantage is that twice I have dropped my Kindle on my nose. As I need to give things away rather than accumulate more, I like to not own books except for my lifeline tomes. I love books and never thought I would like e-reading, but I was given one as a gift…and that has made all the difference. Donna
Kristin Laughtin says
I buy mostly e-, but still buy and borrow some print. The one changeI have noticed is that I read much faster on my Kindle. It could be the percentage at the bottom of the screen spurring me on, or perhaps I just like the lack of page numbers. It makes it harder to say, "I'll stop in ten more pages."
Anonymous says
I went to a reading recently by a poet who was a teacher of mine, and as we chatted he mentioned how much he enjoys his Kindle…while he was signing my paper book on the table in front of him. So this is one question I have for the gung-ho e-reader crew: what happens at author events? Do they e-signature your digital copy? Graffiti your Nook? The signed books I own are treasures to me, repositories of memories as well as words, and maybe worth a penny or more to my descendants, one day. Will the time come when they trot out paper books just for author events, making them even more valuable, and therefore unattainable by the masses? I hate to see that happen. Books have been a unifying force and a conduit for ideas in that almost everyone can afford one, if not new, then second-hand. I don't want them to become such a valuable commodity that they become rare or out of reach. I really, really don't.
Anonymous says
Over the last several years, I slowed my book-buying considerably. The reason is multi-fold: I've gotten into a bad habit of skimming and skipping and not reading the whole book; space constraints and the lack of remotely lucrative used book market made buying books I'd only half read, then have as clutter forever, impractical; and I've shifted to preferring shorter work over novel-length work.
As a result of my reduced book-buying, I was reading less and spending less money on books. I'd buy from digital publishers instead and read novellas at my computer. Now? I've had an e-reader for almost a month and I decided to start a reading journal because I was flying through books. I've bought and read 20 titles since January 12 – possibly already meeting my 2010 totals.
My Nook Color hasn't exactly changed my life but it's changed my reading and buying.
Bryan Russell (Ink) says
Interesting. A quarter of the respondents buy almost entirely e-books, a quarter still buy mostly or almost entirely paper books, and the bulk of the respondents are in the middle, with a mix of formats.
Multiplicity is the way of the future?
Patrick Neylan says
I was tempted by an e-reader, till I read about Amazon remotely deleting several George Orwell books (https://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hEHVHIN3zrBJFN7VvmDffsZZ3wtw).
You buy them, but you don't own them.
Anonymous says
My mother used to devour at least 2-4 books in a week, but in the last couple of years she would be lucky to read a book a fortnight as her sight and arthritis has made it almost impossible to read the small print and turn the pages. She is over the moon now that turning pages is a synch, and I have set the kindle to a larger font and line spacing. The kids love it too
Mr. Wesley Allison says
I don't almost entirely buy ebooks now. I buy only ebooks now.
Michael Offutt says
I live in a small apartment complex so the ereader is totally the way to go for me. Books just collect dust, get old, and as they get old…they look awful.
Oh and what really prompted me to post was that this is post 77–1977 was the year Star Wars came out and forever changed the world. 🙂 I'm so nerdy.
J. T. Shea says
No. Oh, wait. I don't have an E-reader. Except two laptops. In the four years I've had broadband I've bought very few e-books, downloaded a vast number of free e-texts, including free (legal) e-books, and bought even more paper books than before.
But, like some commenters, I'm a rebuyer, with hardcover and softcover editions of important books. I COULD become a big buyer of e-books, particularly if bundled with paper editions.
Devaki's opinion is interesting, coming from a country with more English speakers than all the English speaking countries (excluding only USA) combined.
Eden says
I marked "Still buy almost entirely print books," but that's not totally accurate. Since I got a Nook on Nov 1st of last year, I have bought zero ebooks. Of the 28 books I have read since I got a Nook, 23 were print books (the 5 ebooks I read were from the library). The 50 or so books I've bought since then have all been print books.
I think I still have an aversion to paying good money for something I can't hold in my hands, for books that may not be constantly available because of their digital existence and subsequent dependence on technology. Ebooks seem too insubstantial to pay for.
I think e-readers are invaluable for travelers. I got mine for a 10-day trip that involved two 7-hour flights. It was totally worth it (I was able to read five books that I didn't have to find room for in my luggage), but I haven't even picked up my Nook in the three months since I got home.
So while I love the convenience of my e-reader in certain situations, I don't foresee ever doing more than 15% of my reading on one or buying the ebooks I do read.
Steve Bradley says
Since getting a Kindle for Christmas, I've found that I still prefer actual books. So far the only thing I've used the Kindle for to any extent has been to take advantage of the free classics with expired copyrights. The day after Christmas I downloaded Jane Austen's entire catalog and it didn't cost me a dime. So far this year, I've read 3 e-books and 7 physical books, so I'm far from making the switch.
Of course, this is all coming from someone who still shoots 35mm film. I guess I'm just an analog guy in a digital world.
Erin says
I buy more ebooks than I ever did paper books. However, I buy primarily independently-published books, and rarely ever pay more than 4$ for a book. I find lots of books for free, and even more right around $2.99, since that's where the 70% royalty sets in for indies.
Erin says
(adding a note to my previous comment…)
I've been ebook-only for 3 years now, so I don't think this is just a fad for me)
crazybaroness says
so many great comments that I agree with. 1.)I haven't bought a book since I rcvd my kindle. 2.)PRICE: My first book was Ken Follet's 400,000 word Pillars of the Earth that I have wanted to read and couldn't buy for less than 17.99 as a book that was too heavy to cart around. I bought it for 6.99. 3.)However, I find it very disturbing the E-crap that is being touted as a book. Yes, all those authors as suggested above are reaping in mega bucks based on volume. (70% of 1.99 is a lot of money if one hundred thousand insomniacs down load your troll love story in the middle of the night.) However, I have yet to find a e-published book really worth reading. It's like reading an unedited version of a high school English paper. There is a consensus in this blog and the consensus is price. Why would I download a book for 9.99 when you can buy it second hand on Amazon for less? I still enjoy an A-list edited read and I will pay more for it, but it is no wonder the publishing industry is up against the wall. Sooner or later the e-published books will find a way to self regulate themselves and reading a book that cost 17.99 will be a thing of the past.
crazybaroness says
ps. Jen Hubbard, I bought your book. The hand held kind. It was the bomb. Thank you Nathan whose blog exposed me to it and to several other of my best reads to date.
mbb
sharonedge says
I love picture books, and I will probably buy them in print as long as they are available. I buy some reference books in hard copy, even after reading the Kindle version, because I like making pencil notes in the margins. For everything else, I love my Kindle.
The biggest change in my reading habits since I got my e-reader is that I often several books going at once, especially nonfiction books. What has remained the same is the number of books in the virtual stack waiting to be read.
Gabriela Pereira says
My answer wasn't listed in the poll–Can we add a category? 😉 See, I still buy and read the same amount of print books as before but now with my Kindle, I also buy eBooks on top of that. And then you throw in all those free eBooks on Amazon and Project Gutenberg… I'll have enough reading material to last me years!
min says
As much as I love to look at cover art and feel a book…I don't believe I'll buy anything but e-books again. Reason is, I have lots of anxiety when reading with how many pages are left and I imagine it'll take me forever. I give up easily.
On my iPad…no clue as to how far I am from finishing aside from percentage and you just keep turning and turning and turning until you're suddenly done with the book. It was freeing and the most wonderful reading experience EVER! I think it could've changed my childhood. Seriously. A great cure for ADD readers out there.
LOVE!
min says
Oh, I forgot to mention how much I LOVE that I can whip out my iPhone whenever I have a spare few minutes and continue to read since it picks up where I left off on the iPad at home. Both are easy to read from. The iPhone is surprisingly lovely for reading.
iPad is a tad heavy at times. Still love it.
Buy Exchange says
i still buy print books as for me nothing can beat the pleasure of reading something in a hard copy. Probably i sound a bit conventional but that is how it is for me!
Jan says
I got a Nook because I can download ebooks from the library and that's how I use it. But if I pay real money for a book, I want a real physical book that I can pass on as a real physical object when I'm done with it — I don't want to pay hardcover money to rent a digital copy of a book from the bookstore, subject to their control.
Kathryn Tuccelli says
I recently got a new Nook Classic and I love it! I was initially resistant to having an e-Reader, as I didn't like the thought of not having a physical book in my hands. Then, I realized that I was always bringing a heavy, cumbersome backpack with me when I traveled, so that I would have my favorite -and choice of- books to read.
Now that I have my Nook, I can have hundreds of books with me, and I can read any of them at the touch of a button! I didn't realize how nice it would be to read a big book, like Atlas Shrugged, until I had the Nook. One-hand page turning!
However, I will never stop buying print books (or CD's and DVD's), as I always like to have "hard copies" of my favorite things.
I do think e-Books and e-Readers are where the industry is headed, and, while others may disagree, I don't think that's a bad thing!
Donna says
I bought a Nook a little over a year ago and used it daily for a month, while it was still a novelty, reading some books and the Daybook every day. But I've found the reading experience to be unsatisfactory over the long run. The ease of moving backward to review a page is gone. If I'm reading a challenging nonfiction book, I won't touch it on an e-reader. I buy it or borrow it from the library. I buy a book or two for the reader each month, novels that my library doesn't have.
I use my reader for (1) easy, quick reading; (2) whatever I can't get in print; (3) two magazines that I subscribe to via the Nook; and the B&N Daybook, which I really enjoy.
By the way, the quality of ebooks that are not new — backlist titles — is appalling. Full of scanning errors, missing lines, and garbled, randomly interpolated footnotes. Ugh.
Margo Berendsen says
I'm surprised by the results in the poll! I would have that print books would have still been higher.
As a writer, I love e-books because I can mark them up to my heart's content and go back and find my marks so easily to see those great sentences again.
But there's just no substitute for holding a real book in your hands.
My humble opinion, I think that e-readers are here to stay, but they are a bit of a fad now. I think e-book sales will drop in another year or two before they find equilibrium. That's just a gut feeling. Unless… unless libraries start distributing e-books. That could change everything. Do you know if this is a growing trend in libraries? I live in a little town where our library offers lots of e-audiobooks but so far no e-books.
Doug Pardee says
Margo: according to a survey last summer by Library Journal, 72% of US public libraries offered e-books. I suspect the percentage has grown some since then, because another 9% expected to be offering e-books within a year.
Survey result executive summary for public libraries, in PDF, here.
I think the real hazard is that libraries aren't permitted to lend e-books from some publishers. Macmillan and Simon & Schuster are the most notable hold-outs. If other publishers decide to withdraw lending approval, that could be a mess.
There's also a hazard to libraries' continued lending of printed books, related to US court decisions undermining the First Sale doctrine, but that's a different topic.
Pamala Owldreamer says
I recently moved back to Texas after living four years in Alaska.It is a very costly move and to keep down expenses I replaced as many of my books with e-books as I could. Kept books not available as e-books and collectors editions of rare books and gave many of my beloved hard copies to the local library.I kept sneaking well worn copies out of the boxes and bags until my daughter got wise and locked the bags and boxes in her car. Then I panicked,what if Sony went out of business and I could no longer access my books.What if I dropped my e-reader in and broke it and all of my books were"gasp"GONE.My daughter ,who is not as technology challenged as I am reassured me she could help me access and replace my books.Being a skeptic,I wasn't so sure,but trusted her.
Major moment of panic,grief and sadness when she loaded up her car and drove headed to the tiny local library.I wanted to jump in my car and drive through through ten inches of fresh snow,wind and a near whiteout conditions and bring my babies back home.Damn the expense,none of my books would be left behind,but I did not.
I'm back in Texas now and have replaced some of my books with hard copies of new books and new e-books. I'm purchasing more hard copies than I am e-books.I love my Sony e-reader,but I trust the books I can hold in my hand.
I realize I have probably spent more on replacing books than I would have shipping all of my old books back home.
Jennifer R. Hubbard says
Thanks for the poll–I found it very interesting!
And thank you, crazybaroness/mbb. 🙂
steveb says
I borrowed a friend's Nook to see how it works and only read about 10 "pages" before giving up. I didn't like having to "turn the page" every two paragraphs. Maybe it's something you get used to, but I'll be waiting until a) the screens get bigger or I can afford an iPad and c) they have built-in word translation dictionaries (Japanese to English).
I'm willing to switch and E books are certainly inevitable, I just think they need a little more maturing before I'm ready to plug in.
Anyone else have similar wants or expectations for e-readers?
Dara says
It's 50/50 for me. I mostly use my Nook for library books and the free ones on B&N's website. One of the conditions that my husband and I came up with before I got an eReader was to make sure I didn't go overboard with buying books. So far I've only bought 2 and that's about how many print books I've bought too.
I love that I can use the library with it; I only hope more books are available through the library over time because I'm still getting more actual print books from there than on the Nook.
sabrina says
I read even more now that I've gotten my Kindle–I have to budget for my reading, which is something I never thought much about before. When I was buying print only, I would buy stacks of books every few months, but now I can buy something every day if I'm not careful. I still buy print versions of books by authors that I love, but the majority of my buying is electronic. The joy of instant gratification overrides the smell of books.