I’ve been canvassing the views of authors and publishers involved in e-publishing. But I thought it was about time I heard from the people who really matter, the readers. So I’ve put together a short(ish) questionnaire. It’s really designed for people who have an e-reader of some kind, but I would also be interested in hearing from people who don’t have a kindle (or equivalent). The question for you, I suppose, is are you intending to get one, or will you never succumb?
So here are the questions. Please leave your answers in a comment. Feel free to answer as many or few of the questions as you like. Or if you prefer, just leave a general comment about your views on ebooks. I just want to hear from readers (this includes writers who are also readers, of course!). Thank you!
- What type of ereader do you own? Eg Kindle, Kobo, Sony, iPad, Android… (Are there any others?)
- Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? Or fewer?
- What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
- When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
- How many ebooks do you buy per month? 0-1; 2-4; 5-10; blimey -how many books can you read in a month!? Or “don’t know”.
- Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
- If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books? Mostly ebooks. Mostly print books. About half and half. Don’t know.
- Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
- Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
- Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
- Do you ever buy self-published ebooks? (If not, why not?)
- Do you ever download free ebooks?
- How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
- What influences you in buying an ebook? Cover, author, word of mouth, amazon reviews, publisher, price. Anything else?
- Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
Index to Adventures in e-Publishing.
While the questions are valid, what is their purpose? If I am typical – I own a Kindle – I download a few books on an infrequent basis – and these would NOT be full price.
Reading on electronic media is NOT the same as a paperback, however it might be promoted. But I am more willing to try out unknown works, if the price is low. For me, price is everything, whether it is self-published or not.
I will buy paperback novels from established authors that I particularly follow at regular prices on a regular basis.
What type of ereader do you own? Eg Kindle, Kobo, Sony, iPad, Android… (Are there any others?)
Kindle.
Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? Or fewer?
More. Mainly due to the low prices and more choice.
What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
A Gentle Axe by R.N. Morris about five minutes ago.
When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
Two days ago.
How many ebooks do you buy per month? 0-1; 2-4; 5-10; blimey -how many books can you read in a month!? Or “don’t know”.
5-10.
Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
Still buy print.
If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books? Mostly ebooks. Mostly print books. About half and half. Don’t know.
About half and half.
Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
More short story collections as Ebooks. Don’t usually find those in print often.
Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
Only once, and that was only as the print version contained added features.
Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
Not needed, but I wouldn’t say no.
Do you ever buy self-published ebooks? (If not, why not?)
Yes.
Do you ever download free ebooks?
Yes.
How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
I think that’s the main problem with Ebooks. The pricing issue needs to be regulated in some way. However, many self publishers would get lost amongst the crowd at higher prices, so most price low. In order for writers to ever make any money at it, prices need to increase.
What influences you in buying an ebook? Cover, author, word of mouth, amazon reviews, publisher, price. Anything else?
Word of mouth mostly. Reviews play a part also. I also have authors who I always buy.
Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
It’s no different to reading a print book. If anything it’s easier. For me, I’ve never consciously noticed a difference between reading on a Kindle or in print.
1 Kindle
2 Yes
3 The Qualities Of Wood Mary Vensel white
4 Two weeks ago
5 2-4
6 Mo
7 Mostly e-books
8 Novels only on Kindle
9 No
10 Only in exceptional circumstances
11 Yes
12 Yes
13 I think e-books are currently underpriced and would pay book price less a small percentage. Self published should never beige than £2 unless they have been thoroughly copy edited – too many typos
14 Usually press, bloggers and Twitter
15 no
Thanks John, Luca and Stephen. I really appreciate you taking the time to take part. And Luca, thanks for taking a chance with Gentle Axe – I hope you enjoy it!
1.Kindle,
2.Yes
3.Bindi Girl; Diving Deep into the heart of India
4.6 months
5. 2-4;
6. See link
7.Don’t know.
8.Eclectic but ready to take a chance with ebooks
9.No
10.No its a gimmic
11.Absolutely
12.Regularly
13.Slightly more
14.Cover, author, amazon reviews,
15.Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
Yes, check my latest blog on the subject especially in response to question 6
http://www.tomgoldbooks.blogspot.com
Oh no, can you ignore that above, I was one out! I missed four so they are all one step out after that. Correct comment here:
1. Kindle
2. the same
3. Where the devil can’t go by Anya Lipska
4. a few days ago
5. one, on average in the 18 months since I was given the kindle.
6. Far from it.
7. Mostly print books.
8. Yes, I prefer print but if a book I want to buy is available very cheap on kindle I will go for it. Sometimes I have bought books that are only available on kindle, eg Helsinki Homicide: Against the Wall by Jarkko Sipila (Finnish, translated by a US small publisher, or the brilliant Kinglake-350, a non-fiction book about the 2009 Australian bush fires by Adrian Hyland.
9. No. But I read/buy mostly novels in any event.
10. No, though it is useful to be able to change the font size.
11 I won’t say never, but very rarely. Only if someone I already trust has reviewed or recommended it positively. Amazon is full of utter dross in terms of self-published books and as they refuse to make it clear to the reader what is self and what independently published, I ignore them all and only go by recommendations or if there is a cheap kindle edition of a book I’m looking at anyway via the “print” part of Amazon.
12. Only under the above circumstances, eg I downloaded one by Reed Farell Coleman as a reviewer I trust recommended it, and it looked as if it is the kind of book I read and liked.
13. I don’t have any particular expectations. Some publishers use e-books as loss leaders and make them available cheap or free for a limited time. Also books out of copyright (classics etc) are obtainable free in e-form via the Gutenberg project, and via several publishers. But I know that it is not that much cheaper for a publisher to produce an ebook than a print, most of a publisher’s costs are further back in the chain, eg identifying the author, editing the book etc. Print distribution costs are higher but this is pretty much offset by the VAT publishers have to charge for print (or audio) which they don’t for print.
14. The main influence is the same as the influence for print books – knowing what types of book I like reading, trusted reviews in newspapers and increasingly online, our online discussion group (friend feed crime & mystery group), occasionally Amazon throws up something in its many recommendations it makes me, sometimes a pubilsher eg Corvus makes a book available very cheap that I go for as I would have bought the print anyway, etc. I’m discerning.
15. I don’t like the experience as much as print books. I find it harder to remember things because the format is so uniform across all books. I also think I am too old to be adept at the searching through, eg with a print book I can flick back to remember something, I find it quite cumbersome with an ebook. Though the dictionary can be useful with an ebook (I don’t need it much!) as well as the font changer (can be very useful).
1.What type of ereader do you own?
Sony
2.Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? More
3.What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
Bought two together, on Saturday. They were The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey and Room of Lost Things by Stella Duffy.
4.When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
One week ago.
5.How many ebooks do you buy per month?
5-10
6.Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
No.
7.If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books?
about 3/4 ebooks to 1/4 print.
8.Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
No.
9.Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
A couple of times I have but generally no.
10.Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
Depends on the content. I think for reading on tablets they could work well, particularly for some illustrated non-fiction – art, history or travel books, for instance.
11.Do you ever buy self-published ebooks?
I’ve bought a couple of self-published non-fiction ebooks.
12.Do you ever download free ebooks?
Occasionally.
13.How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
I’m happy to pay up to the paperback price.
With self-published I would not buy without seeing an excerpt – then if good quality I’d pay up to a standard paperback price.
14.What influences you in buying an ebook?
Mostly reviews and word of mouth.
15.Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
As someone who’s normally reading several books at once, I find an ereader really practical. I also like being able to increase the text size.
We have a Kindle – Dani loves it, I hate it – she tells me off because I’m always ‘just looking at something’ on her machine. Books are books, but paper books have much more allure (and you can get them signed). Last (and best) book bought from the kindle store? “The Bridge That Bunuel Built.” We loved it, Roger.
Thanks Tom, Maxine, Michelle and Mike. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment. And thanks for the kind words, Mike!
I’m going to buy a second hand Archos ereader, in order to play around with it and see how much use I get out of it before committing to a dedicated ereader. When I’ll get a new one (I have no doubts I’ll get one at some point), I’m oriented towards a Kobo.
Definitely NOT a Kindle: I tried downloading the Kindle app for my pc (running on Linux, so using Wine, a Windows simulator), it was exceedingly complicated. I wanted to download a free ebook from Amazon and the system just didn’t let me, not even recognizing my own account on amazon (which I had for more than ten years now).
That said, I’d love being able to carry around hundreds of books with me, but I’m not sure the offer is yet up to what I look for (academics books, for example, older publications, etc).
I’d still want to ‘feel’ a book, keep a copy on my bookshelves, but I do see the practicality of ebooks.
Not enough people seem to know you can download a free Kindle app from amazon, which is how I read kindle books:- on my laptop, for free. So far, apart from one book of Lee Jackson’s, all I’ve downloaded is free classics. (Hundreds available from amazon.) … Recently I’ve alternated between rereading Dickens on my laptop (comfortably, actually on my lap, with my feet up) – and a ‘real’ copy in bed. (This behaviour may explained by the fact I am an old and poor pensioner!)
1. Sony e-reader
2. Yes
3 To be honest I can’t remember
4. On Saturday 4 February 2012
5. 0-1
6. No and never will.
7. More print books than e-books
8. I tend not to think so but also feel that I have a tendency to read non crime books on my e-reader.
9.No
10. Interesting when they do but I do not see them as being essential.
11. I prefer not to unless it is an “established author” who is publishing their backlist or a novel because I have found that the editing is poor, the stories at times are not well written and I have found that when I have reviewed a self-published author they get upset when you tell them that the book/story is not up to scratch.
12. Yes but only books that I am interested in reading
13. I do not think that one should pay more than £4.99 for a self published e-book and £7.99 for one by a publishing house.
14. Nothing influences me. It would just depend whether or not I would prefer to read the book as an e-book as opposed to reading it in print.
15. As much as I appreciate e-books, I feel that personally I still prefer print books. I like the thought of turning a page and the feel of paper as opposed to pressing a button on a machine. E-books are useful and I can see the need for them but they honestly rank very low on my choice of how I read.
1. iPad and Kindle (recent upgrade from an old Sony Reader)
2. Yes, I buy more books now I have the above
3. I bought Room by Emma Donoghue last week
4. Popped into Waterstones Saturday just gone
5. I buy 5-10 ebooks a month
6. I buy the occasional print book – very rare though
7. I buy 1 print book to about 20 ebooks
8. To buy a print book it must be beautiful or life-changing. The Kindle is mainly for novels and the iPad for, what I call, PDF books – usually technical books or interactive.
9. I have only ever purchased 3 books in both electronic and print format. They were life-changing books.
10. Yes and no – Kindle ‘novels’ should be just that. iPad technical books should be interactive if it makes sense (such as a book on learning guitar with videos).
11. Yes, I buy self-published ebooks – mainly technical ones.
12. I’ll occasionaly download a free ebook but not very often
13. I’ve paid from £0 to just over £20 for my ebooks so far. For a novel I feel that £2.99 is about right. The publisher is secondary to the author as far as price is concerned.
14. There are some authors whose work I will buy automatically. For the rest I rely upon recommendations via Twitter, Amazon and iTunes – a sale always helps too!
15. I love reading on my Kindle and iPad and easily get through 6-7 books a month. Print books have been elevated to a luxury for me and I’ll happily pay £30-40 for a great print book.
What type of ereader do you own? Eg Kindle, Kobo, Sony, iPad, Android… (Are there any others?)
Kindle.
Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? Or fewer?
Same.
What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
Julian Barnes – Sense of an Ending.
Over last month.
When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
Would be18 months to two years – mind you, most of the book shops I went to were destroyed in the Christchurch (New Zealand) earthquakes over this period, so this is a non-representative answer 🙂
How many ebooks do you buy per month? 0-1; 2-4; 5-10; blimey -how many books can you read in a month!? Or “don’t know”.
0-1
Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
Not entirely, but just about. ebooks are so convenient.
If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books? Mostly ebooks. Mostly print books. About half and half. Don’t know.
Mostly ebooks. Only print book over last two years was Tom Saunders (Zoetrope) book of poetry.
Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
I will probably buy all fiction from now on as ebooks. ‘We’ buy the odd coffee table book and these will never be ebooks. Actually, if I think about it, probably outside fiction the books I most are cook books, and these are alway print books. (I don’t consider these as ‘books’ – I would’ve bought probably five or six cook books over last year, and about that each year).
Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
Never.
Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
No. Indeed, that would be dreadful. I only want to read on eInk, and only text. Video, etc, would completely destroy the reading process for me. Dare I say, it would be both tacky, and sign the world was nearing its end.
Do you ever buy self-published ebooks? (If not, why not?)
Yes. Again, Tom Saunders.
Do you ever download free ebooks?
Yes. Especially from Project Gutenberg.
How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
Expect to pay between $NZ10 to $NZ20 ($US7 – $US15).
Yes, definitely expect to pay more from a publishing house than from self publishing (big difference here, as I know publishing house has sorted out the ‘quality’ issue for me).
What influences you in buying an ebook? Cover, author, word of mouth, amazon reviews, publisher, price. Anything else?
At the moment I’m very busy workwise, so not enough time to read: given this, I simply try to read the Booker short list each year, anything of interest I hear on Zoetrope, plus every book that would come out from my favourite New Zealand authors.
Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
As much as I love print books and my library, I love the convenience of my Kindle.
1.What type of ereader do you own?
Kindle
2.Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? Possibly
3.What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
Restoration by Rose Tremain
4.When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
Popped into Waterstones sometime last month
5.How many ebooks do you buy per month?
1 or 2
6.Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
No.
7.If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books?
50/50
8.Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
Books for fun only on ebook (mainly classic and modern novels). Anything for research/work needs to proper referencing standards, which Kindle lacks. Poetry only in print, ebooks tend to have poor formatting.
9.Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
No
10.Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
Not particularly, although I’m sure someone will exploit the potential in an interesting way at some point.
11.Do you ever buy self-published ebooks?
No, although I would from someone with an established track record.
12.Do you ever download free ebooks?
Yes, mainly victorian novels.
13.How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
Something less than paperback price.
14.What influences you in buying an ebook?
The same things that influence me in buying a paper book.
15.Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
I bloody hate the Kindle’s standard typeface.
I have a Kindle and buuy about the same number of books as before I owned one. Last book John Harvey, Stilll Waters. I buy between 2-4 a month. Last went in book shop last month stiill buy hardbacks as presents and cookery books. May buy both if. Enjoyed book and tought I a ‘keeper’. Probably 50/50. have downloaded freebies usually classics. Don’t know much about self publishing but at £5 worth a punt.
Thanks Silvia, Libby, Paul, Ayo, Mark and Lesley. It seems quite a few of you are willing to pay more for ebooks than I expected, even books by new authors, even self-pubbed (to some extent).
I am beginning to think my ebooks on amazon are under-priced!
What type of ereader do you own?
– Kindle
Do you buy more books overall now that you have an e-reader? Or fewer?
– more
What was the last ebook you bought and when was that?
– The Istanbul Puzzle – about 10 days ago
When was the last time you went in a bricks and mortar bookshop?
– About a fortnight ago
How many ebooks do you buy per month? 0-1; 2-4; 5-10; blimey -how many books can you read in a month!? Or “don’t know”.
– 2 – 4
Have you stopped buying print books entirely since owning an ereader?
– No
If no, what is the ratio of ebooks to print books? Mostly ebooks. Mostly print books. About half and half. Don’t know.
– about half and half
Is there a difference between the type of books you buy as ebooks compared to the print books you are buying? Eg non-fiction for kindle, novels in print?
– No, not really
Do you ever buy the same book in both print and ebook edition?
– Not yet
Do you think an ebook should offer an “enhanced reading experience”, eg video clips or audio?
– not bothered
Do you ever buy self-published ebooks? (If not, why not?)
– not yet
Do you ever download free ebooks?
– Yes
How much do you expect to pay for an ebook? Would you expect to pay more for an ebook published by an established publishing company than one by a self-publishing author?
– At least 1/3 cheaper than a print book
What influences you in buying an ebook? Cover, author, word of mouth, amazon reviews, publisher, price. Anything else?
– Word of mouth / know author / price
Anything else you would like to say about your experience of reading ebooks?
– since starting commuting, my Kindle has been invaluable
1. ShuBook and Stanza on iPhone and iPod. Calibre and Stanza for Mac.
2. Buy, about the same. Adding in free downloads, I read more books overall.
3. Trick of the Light, David Ashton. 18 Jan 2012.
4. A few days ago (Fri, 3 Feb 2012)
5. Buy, 2-4. Legally download for free, another 2-4.
6. No. I remain physically incapable of walking past a bookstore without at least browsing.
7. Paid eBooks to paid print books, 1:1. All eBooks to paid print books, 2:1.
8. For paid books, I tend to stick within the same genres I would normally buy, but I’m possibly more likely to try a new author at £2-3 for an eBook than risk £7 for a print copy.
9. No, I wouldn’t pay for two formats.
10. If I want to know what fiction is like with pictures and/or sound, I believe they’ve already invented radio, TV and film for that purpose. Surely the point of fiction is to fire your imagination, not to show/tell you what to think?
I do, however, like the QI app for iPhone which presents several books in a novel way, but I see that as a totally separate thing from what I think of as ‘reading’.
11. Yes. And every one that I’ve bought is from someone that I followed – or who followed me – on Twitter.
12. Yes. Copyright-free books from ManyBooks and FeedBooks. At least one a week.
13. a) Up to £5. If it’s more than that, I’d honestly rather buy a paperback and get the loyalty points.
b) I expect to pay more for properly edited books, but object at having to pay full paperback price, as the publisher has saved the printing costs.
14. In order of importance, price and word of mouth. I might check Waterstone’s or the Book Depository for reviews.
15. Anything else?
There is a tendency among traditional dead-trees publishers to want to control the typography of eBooks in the same way that they control the print version. This misses the point of the medium. Justified text on a screen the size of an iPhone is a nightmare. In fact, justified text in any screen medium is unreadable to me. As a bare minimum, I want to be able to control the font face, font size, line height and text alignment. (ShuBooks and Stanza are both excellent for this.)
Print books retain a lot of advantages that eBooks don’t have, though. They’re portable. You don’t have to shut off a paperback for landing or take-off on a plane. If you drop them in the bath, you can put them on the radiator and still read them perfectly well. If you leave one on the bus/train, you’ve only lost a few pounds.
Sorry, but I prefer to express a few of my own thoughts.
General principle: I will NOT buy a book reader such as Kindle that is tied to a specific bookseller. If ever I buy an ebook reader it will be one that is fully independent.
I do have the Kindle app on my Blackberry and use it a lot – but I can read books from any source on it, so it is not tied to Amazon. (I use Calibre to convert formats as necessary).
The advantage of reading on my Blackberry is that I always have it with me and I therefore always have a book (or books) to read without carrying extra baggage.
I also use Aldiko on an Android tablet.
I still love and buy paper books – about one a month, usually from discount stores. I read non-fiction only.
I have not so far bought an ebook though I have downloaded ebooks from the lending library. I strongly object to DRM as this prevents me moving a book to my different devices. Apart from experimenting with the library I have so far read ebooks downloaded from Gutenberg and similar sites. I ever I start buying ebooks I will also install software to remove DRM from all my books.
If I did buy ebooks, I would not expect to pay more than I would for the equivalent paper book. In fact, I would expect to pay a lot less. We are still moving through the early stage when manipulative suppliers are banking on people’s enthusiasm to overcharge and over-restrict use. I hope we shall get through this into a period when a more sensible trading philosophy prevails. Until then, Gutenberg holds more books than I will ever have time to read.