Books! Books! Bullshit!

Johannes Gutenberg downloads the Bible to his prototype Kindle.

Literature totally counts as science, right? Anyway.

“E-book sales outstripping real books for first time, claims Amazon”

Really? Really? Bear in mind that there are 3 million E-reader users in all of the USA, and probably fewer than 5 million in the entire world. If this was true, E-reader owners must be reading – or at least buying – hundreds of books a day just to keep up with their more traditional counterparts.

E-book sales have in fact simply outstripped hardback book sales on Amazon.com. Hardback books do not make up anywhere near the bulk of book sales by volume, which is what the numbers in the article are based on. Hardback is a prestige format used mostly for books that are likely to win awards, sell extremely well on release, or can be sold to a captive market (*cough*massively overpriced physics textbooks*cough*). It’s also big – i.e., annoying to order online. Paperbacks can be mass produced and stored far more cheaply, and are much more convenient for carrying, which is why they sell by the hundred-thousand, especially at airports and railway stations.

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