E-Books March On

I have eschewed any arguments about the superiority of one format of books over the other. My main reason being that it has been well-established that people who read intensely often acquire both digital and  physical books. To a student of economics, it is not accurate to view one as the perfect substitute for the other. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that upon acquiring the Kindle, readers go ahead to purchase more books in either format.

An article by Tom Chivers of the Daily Telegraph makes that point in a subtle way though he appears to be partial to the physical book. That notwithstanding, he shows that a large proportion of books read today are still in the paper format and it will be quite a while before the e-books take over completely. He is sympathetic to the fact that large bookstores will be adversely affected and will probably be rendered extinct. My view is that the large bookstores will not necessarily become extinct but will shrink considerably and the economics of the bookstore will have to adapt to the ease of acquisition of books in competing formats.

Since the adoption of e-books is growing faster while books literature in paper form is stagnant at best, it cannot be too far away before publishers have to reckon with this change. Stores will be smaller and books may be delivered based on real-time demand. That cannot be a bad thing for all readers.