UK Research: Consumers expect lower prices for ebooks

Internet Retailing: "... research also revealed a strong consumer expectation to pay less for e-books than their printed equivalent, with nearly half (48%) of consumers saying they expect to pay less, and just one in five (19%) saying they expect to pay the same. Some 7% of Brits say they expect to pay less than 3 pounds, with 28% thinking it should be between 3 pounds and 5.99 pounds. Younger readers were the most likely to expect to pay less—reflecting, according to Mintel, their general experience of being able to procure digital product for less or free on the internet."

J. P. Morgan: Almost One-Third Of Internet Users Plan To Buy A Kindle

SF Chronicle: "A whopping 28% of Internet users surveyed by J. P. Morgan in December say they either own a Kindle or plan to buy one in the next year. ... The survey also bolsters the claim of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that iPad owners are buying Kindles: 40% of iPad users surveyed already own one, and 23% plan to buy one in the next year. According to J. P. Morgan analyst Imran Khan, the big price difference between the two devices -- $139 for the low-end Kindle versus $499 for the cheapest iPad -- really places them in different categories. Khan also pointed out that overall e-book revenue is exploding, going from 1% of overall book revenue in 2008 to 9% in 2010 ... "

Bowker Study: eBooks Continue Robust Expansion While Paper Editions Continue Decline

PW:

With holiday shopping in full swing comes more evidence that e-book sales should enjoy a big bump over the next few weeks. According to an analysis of consumer book-buying behavior conducted by Bowker's PubTrack Consumer service, 20% of readers reported in October that they are likely to buy an e-reader compared to just 10% in the 2009 holiday season. Moreover, just over 10% of readers in September and October said they read e-books on a daily or weekly basis compared to only about 3% a year ago. That combination, the report says, indicates that a spike in e-book purchases could be coming soon. ...

The data also show that e-book readers are becoming increasingly loyal to the format. Comparing e-book buyers' book purchases, 64% bought e-books in the third quarter of 2010, up from 56.6% in the comparable period in 2009. The decline in e-book buyers in purchasing other formats, not surprisingly, mirrored that of the overall market, with meaningful declines of hardcover and mass market paperbacks ...

Codex Group: 21% of Book Shoppers Now Own Dedicated eReader or Tablet - And These Numbers are pre-Christmas

Publishers Weekly: "The launch of the iPad and price cuts to the Kindle resulted in a significant increase in the number of digital reading devices owned by consumers between June and November, with 21% of book shoppers now owning a dedicated e-reader or tablet. The finding is part of the Codex Group's most recent national book shopper survey, which polled 6,250 book buyers on various aspects of their book-buying habits. Codex estimated that the introduction of the $139 Kindle in July helped to spur sales of 800,000 units between June and mid-November, with total units sold estimated at 2.7 million. The growth in Kindle unit sales drove overall e-reader penetration among book shoppers to 14% in November, and penetration levels could reach 22% by mid-2011, Codex predicted. The forecast is based on a dramatic increase in the number of book buyers stating they plan to buy a digital reading device this year."

Interesting (Albeit Sexist) "Take" on eReader Demographics, Although These Specific to Europe

Seer Press: "Finance chief for Lagardère, which owns book publisher Hachette Livre, said young wealthy men, mainly investment bankers, support the ebook market, while 50 something woman with average income account for a substantial amount of paperback book customers. Dominique D’Hinnin’s comments follow conclusion of a deal between Hachette and Google which will let the search engine giant scan and sell its out of print books online. D’Hinnin spoke about the ebook market at the Morgan Stanley TMT conference in Barcelona, explaining, 'We don’t talk about the mass market yet. Most e-book buyers are males, 35 years old, with a lot of money. Basically, it’s investment bankers'. He said advertizing rates for magazine applications are also increasing because of purchases by well-to-do iPad owners. E-book prices are about 20% lower than prices for new hard back books, and profits are better because there are no marketing or distributing costs."

Market Researchers: eReaders Will Hit Sales "Tipping Point" this Holiday Shopping Season

NYTimes.com:

“This is the tipping-point season for e-readers, there’s no question,” said Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, a book market research company. “A lot more books are going to be sold in e-book format. It also means that a lot fewer people are going to be shopping in bookstores.”

Only a small slice of the book-buying public has bought an e-reader. About nine million devices are in circulation in the United States, according to Forrester Research.

That could jump in the coming weeks as consumers begin their holiday shopping, analysts predict. According to Forrester, at least 10.3 million e-readers could be in circulation by the end of the year. ...

iPad Owners: Younger and More Male. Kindle Owners: Richer and Better Educated

Fortune Tech: "As part of Advertising Week's Mobile Ad Summit Tuesday, the Nielsen Company released the results of a survey of 5,000 consumers who own a tablet computer, eReader, netbook, media player or smartphone – including 400 iPad owners. The survey found some curious demographic differences."

In Scholastic Study, Children Like Digital Reading

NYTimes.com: "Many children want to read books on digital devices and would read for fun more frequently if they could obtain e-books. But even if they had that access, two-thirds of them would not want to give up their traditional print books. These are a few of the findings in a study being released on Wednesday by Scholastic, the American publisher of the Harry Potter books and the 'Hunger Games' trilogy. "

Market Research: eBook Medium Significantly Increases the Number of Books Read and PURCHASED

NYTimes.com: "A study earlier this year by L.E.K. Consulting ... found that almost half of those with e-readers were buying and reading more books, and Amazon has said that customers buy more than 3 times as many books after they buy a Kindle e-reader. Interestingly enough, the L.E.K. survey found that 36 percent of the books read by people with e-readers were what it called 'incremental consumption.' In other words, e-reader owners were reading new books, rather than books that the owner would otherwise have read in print. The global consulting group reported the findings in its second annual 'Hidden Opportunities in New Media Survey' of more than 2,000 households. According to recent figures from Amazon, in the second quarter of this year the company sold 143 Kindle e-books for every 100 hardcover books sold."

Market Research: Converts to eBooks Read More

WSJ.com: "A study of 1,200 e-reader owners by Marketing and Research Resources Inc. found that 40% said they now read more than they did with print books. Of those surveyed, 58% said they read about the same as before while 2% said they read less than before. And 55% of the respondents in the May study, paid for by e-reader maker Sony Corp., thought they'd use the device to read even more books in the future. The study looked at owners of three devices: Amazon.com Inc.'s Kindle, Apple Inc.'s iPad and the Sony Reader."

Interesting Market Analysis: "Purpose-Built" Kindle vs. Multifunction Tablet in the Longterm

Digital Domain - Kindle vs. iPad - Specialist Against Multitasker - NYTimes.com: "Amazon calls the Kindle a 'purpose-built device,' leaving room for ancillary uses but preserving the idea that it has one central purpose. It’s much lighter than the iPad — not a small consideration when reading for any length of time. Wherever there’s sunlight, the Kindle’s text is easier on the eyes. And its battery life is measured in weeks, not hours. ... It’s not surprising that a 'purpose-built device' does a better job at its one task. The question is whether some years down the road — say, in the 2020 holiday season — customers will still be willing to buy single-purpose devices in addition to irresistible multipurpose ones."

The writer goes on to compare the prospects of the dedicated to eReader to those of the old dedicated word processing devices.  But this analogy is flawed. Word processing is generally not a leisure-time activity, while reading often is. For me, personally, there is always the desire to break away from the business machine once business is done, and to find another environment. Also, as elucidated above, the dedicated eReader offers many advantages (size, weight, readability) over a tablet when it comes to books. These aspects were not part of the equation re: the dedicated word processor, which offered virtually no advantage over a desktop PC.

iPad Owner/User Demographics, Habits, etc.

Interesting to see the demographics, but even more interesting (for me, at least) to ponder the smart methodology for the first of these two studies, based on the tech profiles of visitors to Yahoo - a huge self-selected universe. Nick Saint of The San Francisco Chronicle delivers details. "Who visits Yahoo with an iPad obviously depends on Yahoo's own demographics as well as those of the iPad, but Yahoo indexes the results to its baseline, offering up a good picture of what the average iPad owner looks like. ..." That was yesterday's paper, by the way. In today's edition, Ryan Kim delves deeper with the results of a new Resolve Market Research survey of iPad users - a more traditional approach.

News Flash: Statistically Insignificant Nielsen Norman Study Yields Suspect and Useless Data Re: eBook Read Times

There's been much blogging and tweeting over the last day or so about a recent "study" conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group. This study supposedly demonstrates, among other things, that eBooks take longer to read than traditional books. Now, I don't actually believe that the core headline question (note: the study also embraces several other issues of usability and readability across devices) is terribly important, but it still needs to be said that the problems with this research are two.

First, the study embraces only 24 users, which is nowhere near being statistically significant, even though TG Daily optimistically calls it "just about statistically significant," whatever that means.

Also, no data is given on how the 24 users were chosen or who they were from a demographic point of view. Young? Old? People completely new to eBooks, or folks experienced with the technology? College educated? Not? People carefully chosen to be representative of the broad market across devices?

Fact is, I don't see how that latter can be achieved with a study universe so small as 24. In fact, as someone with thirty years experience in both qualitative and quantitative market research, I know it can not be achieved with so small a universe of 24. Such details need to be attended to in any serious research.

Thus, at the end of the day what we have here is an unreliable answer to an irrelevant question, plus (more dangerously) unreliable answers to several other more cogent questions concerning device ergonomics. Reader beware.