Looks like print books ain't dead yet.

[David DeLee]

Read an interesting article in the USA TODAY regarding ebook sales.
Here's the link to the full article:

 http://books.usatoday.com/bookbuzz/post/2012-07-18/e-books-outsell-...

But the highlights for me were...

1) In 2011, ebook versions of novels for adults outsold hardcovers for the first time.
(This has been widely reported previously)

But,

2) All print formats...account for $ 11.1 billion in net revenue last year, compared with $2.1 billion for e-books.

My money's on print books staying around, the way hardback survived paperbacks years ago. Just my opinion.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

Are we talking revenue or profit? There's a big difference. You'd make more in revenue off print, but after you figure in expenses, your profit might be lower than with e-books.

Semantics aside, print books aren't going to die.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Never?

[I. J. Parker]

The big sales go to top bestselling novels, all in the hands of big publishing companies.  Of course, they'll survive, in any format.  In addition, the big houses lso make big bucks off electronic rights they hold for current and former authors.  Their expenses are negligible and the earnings huge.  Those earnings also prop up the publishing houses.  Some are beginning to start self-publishing platforms in order to make even more electronic bucks.

Konrath is wrong about the publishers going out of business soon.  What may happen is that publishing houses may print fewer copies and do so cheaply just so they can get the electronic rights.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Well, I think I'll wait and see before just declaring him wrong or right.

But as things move away from print books, the power of capitalization will diminish.

Printing "fewer copies" isn't actually cheaper, any way I can see.  Maybe they'll go to POD.

In other words, start moving more and more towards exactly what independent authors are doing, but hauling with them skyscrapers of dead wood. 

As established authors move away from to go on their own, taking those rights with them.

So they make desperation moves like Penguin buying Author House??????

I think you'd have trouble finding anybody in Vegas who'd lay down any money on them.

[Eric Christopherson]

The experts tend to agree ebooks will be 50% of the market by 2015 or so. I'll speculate that ebooks will top out at around 70%.