Hardbacks proving a hard sell as new eBook takes over

Once a novel purchase for bookworms, the hefty hardback is in decline as technology becomes the main page-turner. Gary Flockhart asks if this is the end of the story for it

THE new Thomas Pynchon novel just landed on my doormat," joked a literary journalist a few years back. "I'm not sure I can lift the thing, let alone read it."

It's a dilemma that will be familiar to anyone who's ever bought the hardback version one of those serious and weighty works by the likes of Pynchon. What are you supposed to do? Read it? Or use it as a doorstopper?

No matter, for that might all be a thing of the past, according to reports of the demise of that most traditional of reading formats.

In what could be a watershed for the publishing industry, Amazon, the world's largest online store, has just announced that sales of eBooks for its digital reader have outstripped hardcover books for the first time. It has sold 143 digital books for its e-reader for every 100 hardbacks over the last three months.

Sounds ominous, but, before we write an obituary to the hardback, it is worth remembering this is just Amazon's customer base. Their shoppers tend on the whole to be younger, so they are not entirely representative of book buyers overall, but they may offer a sign of things to come.

So what about shoppers at traditional book stores, are they turning their back on the hardback too? Yes, to an extent, according to Peter Ritchie, who owns The Bookworm on Dalkeith Road, and has been in business for over 20 years at the same premises. The hardback, he says, has been out of fashion for quite some time.

"Hardback fiction books are very difficult for me to sell," he explains. "I'm selling them at the same price as paperbacks. If I have the same title in both formats, nine times out of 10 the paperback will go before the hardback. That said, the hardback would be selling at 17 or whatever, so it makes sense that people are going to opt for the cheaper alternative."

Ritchie says the only people who seek out hardbacks these days are the collectors. "If someone is wanting to build up a collection of, let's say Ian Rankin books, they will want all of his books in hardback. From a collectors point of view, then, eBooks don't even come into the equation. After all, if you go into someone's house and they have a collection of books proudly on display, can you see a row of eBooks? No way. Hardbacks are aesthetically pleasing. An eBook is just an e-book, really. They don't look very good on bookshelves."

Ritchie was having a chat with Rankin himself recently, who told him that, like it or not, the eBook will eventually outsell the hardback. "Ian's not the only one who thinks like this, either," says the bookstore owner. "I know a lot of publishers - major ones included - are talking about not doing hardbacks at all."

This comes as no great surprise to local crime author Tony Black, author of the Gus Dury series of novels. "Publishing as a whole is moving away from printing hardback," he says. "My last hardback was 17.99 and my last paperback was 5.99. Purely from economical point of view, people are going to hold off for the paperback, especially in a recession.

"Because of this trend there's fewer hardbacks being printed," he continues. "They are becoming a luxury item for writers like Wilbur Smith, who can actually shift them. But if the big authors can still sell hardbacks they will continue to be available."

A possible reason for Amazon's astonishing sales figures, according to Black, is the fad angle brought about by the launch of Apple's swanky new iPad. "That's obviously given eBooks a boost in sales," he says. "Right now you'd have to imagine a lot of people going out and buying eBooks to use with their new toy, which will have given a huge sales boost."

Black thinks the novelty will soon wear off though. "As soon as they realise that it is backlit and it is burning their retinas out they might change their mind," he laughs. "My point of view is that I'd sooner scoop my eyeballs out with a spoon than read a page on a screen, so I don't see at all how people are getting interested in it."

Regardless of his own distaste for digital format reading, the Edinburgh author doesn't see the eBooks replacing the physical book anytime soon. "I don't think there's anything to worry about, no," he opines. "People have been predicting the demise of the physical book for decades - it's never happened. I honestly don't think it ever will."

But what of the publishers themselves, do they see the hardback as having had its day?

One crucial thing from their point of view is the money they make. Some of Amazon's best-selling ebooks retail for as little as 75p, so while sales might overtake those of hardbacks, the publishers will still be making more money from smaller number of hardback sales.

Dan Franklin, digital editor of Edinburgh-based independent publishing house Canongate, adds: "What's worth noting is that Amazon are saying that eBooks are now outselling hardbacks, but they are also saying that hardback sales are on the increase," he says. "They are not saying that eBook sales are rising and that hardback sales are decreasing.

"It's encouraging all round, because it shows the format is growing. But at the moment it's definitely a complimentary format that's not damaging print books. For example, they say James Patterson has sold 1.14 million e-books to date, and Amazon say they account for about 800,000 of those sales. Well, worldwide, James Patterson has sold 205 million books, so they are selling something like 0.5 per cent of those total sales. As far as the death of the hardback is concerned, then, this isn't it.

"It is another good story about the rise of the eBook, and how well Kindle (Amazon's purpose-built reading device for eBooks] is rooted in the US market," he concludes.

"But the idea that eBooks are coming along and killing physical publishing, that's nonsense. It's just not the case."A NEW CHAPTER IN PUBLISHING

• Five authors, including Stieg Larsson, the writer of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, and Stephenie Meyer, who wrote the Twilight series, have sold more than 500,000 digital books on Amazon.

• The thriller writer James Patterson is believed to be the biggest selling author of digital books with more than one million sales.

• Digital books accounted for around 150 million sales in Britain last year, but only 5m were consumer sales, with the rest being in the academic/professional sector.

• Waterstones expects to sell its one millionth digital book this year.

• Amazon has 390,000 titles available for readers to download, although they still have to be accessed through the United States version of their site, with books priced in dollars.