E-books outsell hardback books on Amazon.com
Jennifer Abercrombie
Issue date: 7/29/10 Section: News
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The downloading of an e-book, or books online, has become wildly popular, and now news sources are buzzing over Amazon's recent announcement that they sold 80 percent more e-books than hardback books over the past year.
Digital books for Amazon's e-reader Kindle are outstripping hardback books in the US, at a rate of 143 e-books for every 100 hardbacks over the past three months.
"This is incredible, considering we have been selling hardbacks for years and Kindles for 33 months," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com.
It seems as though the trend is moving toward the small, handheld device that has the capacity to hold up to 1,500 books. Amazon advertises that the Kindle was created to provide readers an easier way to read and store their books, and customers seem to agree.
Chelsea Burke, a user of the Kindle, said that its advantages are "its light weight. I like to carry books around with me to read on the metro, but" she laughs, "it started to interfere with what purse I could carry with my outfit, and that just wouldn't do."
On their website, Amazon advertises Kindles to be "slim, lightweight, and simple to use."
Jim Crane, a man who carries his Kindle to and from work in his laptop bag, says it has been a great buy. During his hour-long commute into Washington D.C. and back again in the evenings, he said, "I just read more now overall. I used to not be such a big reader."
Though the Kindle itself may seem expensive upfront at $189, it may create a larger ripple of savings. John Lee, a college graduate living in New York City said that he looks forward to "devices like Kindles bringing down the cost of books," much like the trend when music was taken out of record shops and became readily available online.
Students have found Kindles to offer an alternative to lugging around a heavy backpack, which has notoriously caused back problems in the past.
"They don't have all my textbooks available yet," Matt Breining a college student, said, but there are plenty of "books I read in my lit classes. Sometimes that can be four books per class, so it helps to have them all together like that."
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