Decline in print book sales slows in 2012

A piece in today’s Guardian (9 January) observes that the decline in print book sales slowed in 2012. While ebooks and ebook readers proliferate the love of traditional books dies hard.

The article points to the huge discounts offered by ebook retailers such as Sony and Amazon in order to enhance ebook sales. For example some best selling authors have had their ebooks sold for as little as £0.20. The two authors interviewed by The Guardian admit to having mixed feelings concerning the discounting of their work. On the one hand they welcome the increased exposure which discounting provides (more people buy their work) while, on the other hand the writers feel that such discounting devalues books as it fails to take into account the great effort in terms of time and money expended in producing works of literature.

For this interesting article please visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jan/09/printed-book-sales-2012