Some readers are moving away from digital reading and becoming a cross-reader: a person that utilizes both print and digital forms of material. The Association of American Publishers said eBook sales fell 10 percent within the first few months of 2015.
During the great recession, book sales dropped and the e-reader and eBooks emerged. One of the most memorable collapses during this time was Borders book store being bought out by Barnes & Noble. This year the book market is seeing a turnaround in sales.
Doug Wilson, co-owner of Village Books in Columbia, said that he noticed this trend as early as two years ago when his e-book readers began purchasing the same title in print form.
“Readers would go ahead and buy a physical copy,” Wilson said. “We always thought that was a little on the odd side. This is how they were determining that the e-version didn’t have any tangibility to it. It wasn’t something that they considered part of their collection.”
Wilson said that there are too many ways to fall out of the digital experience and that the mind can wander too far when reading an e-book.
The University of Missouri Press publishes many scholarly books. UM Press Director David Rosenbaum said that they did not experience a huge decline in sales when e-readers and eBooks first came to the market.
According to Rosenbaum, only about 10 percent of their sales come from eBooks. He said they still see a large amount of paperback and hardcover readers.
Neither form of reading is expected to fall completely in the near future. However, the Association of American Publishers did find that Paperback sales grew 8.4 percent in the first five months of 2015, compared to the same months in 2014, while eBook sales are down 10.2 percent year-to-date.