Er, you think it's a fluke, then? A fad that will fade away in good time? I can't prove you wrong, but if that's your opinion, you're definitely in the minority. Even B&N says that ebooks are the key to its future. If you look at the recent past, the sale of physical cds was a HUGE business. Nowadays, digital downloads account for over 35% of all music sales, and that number continues to grow. Sales of physical cds fall every year, while online retailers continue to grow. Physical stores are drastically downsizing their music departments.

This is what will happen to book sales. In the case of books, though, most places that sell them rely on them as their main source of income. Borders is not Best Buy; they can't work extra hard at ripping people off on HDMI cables to make up the difference. It's probable that their physical presence will drastically change in the near future, and possible that they (and other bookstores) will disappear entirely if they can't figure out how to make money without relying on physical books.



Yes, it is. Amazon is the largest book retailer in the world, and, in roughly three years, ebook sales have topped its charts. No matter how you look at it, a large percentage of the money spent on those ebooks would have been spent on physical books had ebooks not been around. It's direct market cannibalization. When sales of ebooks increase, sales of physical books decrease. This is evidence of physical book sale decline. Proof, really. Obviously the numbers of one retailer don't represent the entire industry, and so I agree that this (in and of itself) is not evidence of the complete death/demise of physical books, but of decline? Of course it is.



I don't think this will take as long as you think. According to a publishersmarketplace.com report that I saw (I have no idea how reputable that place is, so feel free to call me out on this), stores that sell new books (as opposed to used copies) saw book sales drop 12% last year. Bookstores can't take many years of that. They will downsize, evolve. . .and move away from physical books.



*shrugs* And you probably won't have to. Give them up, that is. This is just a matter of personal preference, though. I grew up on physical books, and genuinely prefer the reading experience of my Sony Reader these days. It's much easier to hold, I can change the font/display however I like, and it always instantly has my page for me, right where I left it. I understand the allure of physical books, but a large portion of that is nostalgia / associative pleasure (for lack of a better term). And by that I mean, you've come to associate the feel/smell of a book with reading enjoyment, and a gadget can't replicate that. This is likely to change, however, once people start growing up with ereaders instead of (or in addition to) physical books.