Did you see the announcement that Transcontinental, the largest printer in Canad

a and the fourth-largest in North America, is selling their book division? In ca

se you missed it, Transcontinental announced they are selling their book printin
g assets to Marquis Book Printing. Is this a sign of problems in the book market
? This announcement as well as others has reignited the conversation about E-Boo
ks vs. Printed Books.
Those who would argue e-books are killing printed books would point to Associati
on of American Publishers data from 9/11 that major trade categories fell 22.9%
in the first six months of 2011. Or to data that in 2011 that e-book versions of
novels aimed at adults outsold hardcover s for the first time. The study revealed
that while the publishing industry had expanded overall, publishers mass-market
paperback sales had fallen 14 percent since 2008. Net sales of e-books increased
to 15 percent of the market in 2011 from 6 percent in 2010.
Years ago when you asked people if they preferred reading from their computers o
r reading from print, the overwhelming response was print. But the popularity of
reading from screens is growing. In 2010, Gartner surveyed 1,569 consumers in s
ix countries the US, UK, China, Japan, Italy and India
about their subjective ex
periences of reading on screen versus reading printed paper text. They reported
that the amount of time people spend reading on a digital screen was almost equa
l to the time spent reading text printed on paper. A majority of tablet and iPad
users say they find screen reading either easier than reading printed text (52
percent) or about the same (42 percent).Amazon Kindle e-reader
Personally I don t think it is that close anymore, because the resolution on scree
ns and the technology in e-readers is improving and gaining greater acceptance.
As an owner of both a Kindle and an iPad, I like reading from the iPad for an ho
ur or less, but for long flights I prefer the Kindle screen. And let s not forget
that Apple has started shifting the resolution of both the iPad3 and Macbook Pro
models to the Retina display, which has much higher density and is claimed to be
easier to read.
However, there is data that says that book printing is alive and well. Bowker, a
leader in compiling bibliographic information, released its annual report recen
tly on U.S. print book publishing for 2011. Based on early numbers, they are pro
jecting that traditional print book output grew six percent in 2011. At first gl
ance that represents the most significant expansion in more than four years for
America s traditional publishing sector. But if you remove the self-publishing mar
ket from the calculations then the market data shows that books are relatively f
lat from 2010.
Another interesting aspect of reading preference is the importance of the purpos
e or the place where you read. A recent Pew Study found that people prefer print
ed books when sharing with other adults or reading to a child. The preference wa
s fairly close when reading in bed or when they have a wide selection to choose
from. And they prefer e-books when traveling or need to find a book quickly.
According to Reuters, while e-books increased in strength, bringing in more than
$2 billion in 2011, the majority of publishers revenue still came from print boo
ks, with $11.1 billion in 2011. We re delighted to see it (the report) affirm that
the industry has remained steady, and has even grown in some areas, in what cont
inues to be a challenging economic time and through such significant transformat
ion, said Len Vlahos, executive director of the Book Industry Study Group, in an
email cited in the Reuters article.
We will follow up with another blog on this, but we are interested in your feedb
ack. First, we would like to hear from you. What would you like to hear about in
this debate? And second, what is your opinion? Can you answer these?

When it comes to books, do you prefer paper or pixels?

Do you think e-books are killing printed books?
Which markets will survive and what new markets may appear?