In a previous post, Reading language, I reflected on the mix of languages about the books that I read. This post, some days later, triggered the idea of taking a look at which format do I use when reading books; paper books or electronic books.
I have had a couple of electronic readers since some time ago. The first one being a gift received in 2010 (1) and the second one, a similar model I bought in 2013 to replace the previous model which got damaged. I have always thought that the business case for the electronic book was clear and positive: after just reading about 20 books in it the purchase was probably justified, especially if those books were classic ones, of which free copies are available in the net.
Find below the figures.
However, taking a look at the table above, the business case for me it has clearly not yet proven positive… In the past 5 years I have read less than 10 electronic books. So far, the cost of the 2 e-readers that I have had, plus the cost of the ebooks divided by the number of books I read in electronic format (a figure between 20 and 30 euros) surely exceeds the average cost of the books in paper format that I buy (which I haven’t calculated but must be between 10 and 20 euros).
What is actually the electronic book adoption trend nowadays? I found several articles. It seems that the high growth of the e-book market up to 2010 has more or less stopped. In this article from The New York Times, it is mentioned that about 30% of readers read a majority of books in electronic format, whereas this other one mentions that in terms of sales ebooks represent as well around 27-30%.
Finally, on the other hand, there is people like my wife, Luca; if she made the numbers for her reading habits, they would show that she reads books per dozens per year and that she reads a large majority of electronic books. She has a Kindle reader from Amazon, rather than a Sony e-reader as I do. This subtle difference may have a point in the shaping of habits: in the Kindle the shop is in the device itself. In a couple of clicks she has the book with her. In my case, I have to buy or download the books using a computer and then transfer the files from the computer to the reader. I guess that this subtle difference, which eases the availability of books for Kindle readers, may have a big impact.
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Note: In 2013 I completed reading “Thinking Fast and Slow” which I started in electronic format, but after my e-reader got damaged I continued and completed in paper format (in the meantime, Luca had bought it in parallel in paper), hence the use of decimals.
(1) I received this gift at the end of 2010 from former work colleagues when I left my job in Madrid for Toulouse. I therefore include in the table for the mix of format, only the books from 2011 onwards (it is obvious that before 2011 all the books I read were in paper format).
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