I'm seeing reports of a 5% decrease (a ~152 million pound decrease) in print book sales in the UK from 2018 to 2019. "Selling books to people who want to read them" seems to be a declining business.
The 3% increase in ebook licensing revenue from 2018 to 2019 was an absolutely increase of ~20 million pounds. That doesn't absorb event a quarter of the decrease in print sales. Given the relative price parity between the two, I'd say that people who aren't purchasing print books aren't licensing ebooks, by and large, either.
Unless the book publishing industry can come up with some analog to subscription streaming services, or can use their lobby to kill general purpose computing devices, I don't think the long game looks very good for their business model. Video and audio media are well suited to the streaming market because there's enough inconvenience in making infringing copies to make paying license feeds worthwhile (at least, with current media file sizes and network speeds).
I don't think ebooks have as strong a value proposition for paying the license fee vs. making an infringing copy.
2018 was also the first time in five years that overall revenues fell – 2018 was still better than 2014 and 2015. The idea that we should scuttle the entire publishing industry and switch to Spotify because of these minor fluctuations from year to year prove the "business model is dying" is absolutely cockamamie. "Legacy publishing" continues to support the production of great work – that is what counts. (It is also my livelihood as an author, so yes I'm biased.) I shudder at the alternative – say Kindle Unlimited, the closest thing that's been tried to a streaming model, which has worked well for romance novelists and romance readers and pretty much nobody else.
fwiwi, I'm continiously buying relatively expensive printed books, mostly technical. I think I will continue doing so, at least as long as I can oder printed copies.
Paper copies have a few important advantages. They do not distract me. Do not run out of battery, and I can use visual and physical clues for finding topics, see my progress, make notes, etc.
Five years of using Kindle, proved that even a dedicated e-reader in no ways can provide a similar experience. So, at least for a niche printed copies would be a thing for quite some time.
The 3% increase in ebook licensing revenue from 2018 to 2019 was an absolutely increase of ~20 million pounds. That doesn't absorb event a quarter of the decrease in print sales. Given the relative price parity between the two, I'd say that people who aren't purchasing print books aren't licensing ebooks, by and large, either.
Unless the book publishing industry can come up with some analog to subscription streaming services, or can use their lobby to kill general purpose computing devices, I don't think the long game looks very good for their business model. Video and audio media are well suited to the streaming market because there's enough inconvenience in making infringing copies to make paying license feeds worthwhile (at least, with current media file sizes and network speeds).
I don't think ebooks have as strong a value proposition for paying the license fee vs. making an infringing copy.