Cookbook ebooks low sales for a reason?

[Andy Hamilton]

Been looking at the sales figures for booze for free, pretty healthy which is alway good. However, the ebook sales figures tell a different story. Last count 29, yep just 29.

I don't have an e-reader of any kind but I assume that cookbooks (and esp home brewing cook books) don't exactly lend themselves to the electronic format. One splash of liquid and you can destroy not just your cookbook but all of your books on your reader. A spill on a real book however, is a different story (pardon the pun). I once left a new foraging book under a barrel of beer with a leaking tap, I still have the book and still use it all the time. Only it smells of beer, the cover has come off and the pages are all brown.

So is this why sales of the ebook are so bad? Will e-cookbooks never really take on?

[Maykal]

I have an e-reader and it's really good. Living abroad it's hard to get hold of Engish-language books and so getting my Kindle was really boon. It's also handy for travel - beats filling up valuable luggage space with reading books. I've certainly read a lot more since I got hold of the e-reader - and it was a freebie!.

However, I buy all my cookery books, brewing books, guides, and so on in paper format. As you said, it's just not the same trying to find a recipe on an e-reader - you can't really have nice pictures on it, and you can't quite 'flick through' an e-reader and just scan the pages for something interesting or useful. It's only really good for novels, or some book you're going to read from cover to cover.

I have loads of cookery book in PDF format but I almost never look at them either. Whenever I'm trying to get inspiration for a meal, I always turn to the 'real' books first.

[Green Aura]

I've learned the hard way

I've bought one recipe book my free PC e-reader. Never again. It's not just the problems you raise but finding anything is an absolute nightmare.

For example,last night I made chicken in a coconut sauce. The recipe for the sauce was in a separate section. With a book you can stick a marker in each page and flip back and forth as needed.

Never again - I'm actually considering buying the same book, hard copy.

[southeast-isher]

the digital rights management sucks but i guess you need it... i only ever pay for lovely colourful well designed PDFs rather than the other text-based formats.

[Andy Hamilton]

the digital rights management sucks but i guess you need it... i only ever pay for lovely colourful well designed PDFs rather than the other text-based formats.

Sorry but you've hit a nerve here. Its never right to not pay for a book. The average wage for an author - £5000 a year. An average that doesn't even reflect the real wage as you have to take into account the huge advances paid to the celebs. Most of us earn much less. What makes that statement worse is that the only authors ones who have the lovely colourful PDF's are the celebs as most publishers can't afford to invest as much into lower selling authors.

So yep of course we authors need it.

Its not as if most authors won't do a certain amount of work for free anyway.Talks to schools, writing articles to help promote books, TV appearances, radio interviews are at best low paid and at worst can leave you out of pocket with transport costs. Stealing electronic copies of our books is really robbing us of another much needed revenue stream.

All books are available at libraries for free and every time one is taken out 6p goes to the author. You can at least get a book from a library, If you like what a writer writes then you should support that otherwise they won't be able to afford to carry on writing.

[merlin]

I quite like the idea of the Kindle type products. I don’t think they are vulnerable as all that. However, It seems to me that that anything other than story books are generally not available. I did look into it, you can get the complete works of Sherlock Holmes for free on download to a Kindle, and thousands of others, but try to get something useful.

[Thomzo]

Hi
I've just invested in an e-reader to take on holiday with me for all the same reasons as Maykal and I agree with what's already been said. A lot of my OU material is available online and it's a nightmare. I end up having to print a lot of it out so that I can flick from one page to another, annotate parts or put in post-its to keep useful information handy. I imagine the same is true of cookery books. Give me a good, hard-back cookery book any day, although I tend to use my paperback Mrs Beeton the most.

Zoe

[Maykal]

Plus on an e-reader you can boost the font size and make it easier to read. That and the lightness of the device also make it a lot easier to read weighty classics.

[merlin]

People will pay for something they want, digital or otherwise. I paid quite a few dollars for solar panel instructions and films last week, and I am not flush I can assure you. I really can’t believe all the fuss about this new thing about not being able to steal things from other people. Almost everybody I know downloads films and things from the internet, all copyright. It’s wrong, it’s stealing.

I don’t support the argument that authors should be supported more than I support the argument that counsellors should give free time to ‘deserving’ cases after spending five years studying and paying for the privilege, or people being given money 'not to grow food'.

You make your choices and that’s that. If you want an even chance of being well off through your job, be a vet!

Simply I believe that normal laws should apply, the last I heard, walking into a book shop and taking a book without paying was a crime.

[southeast-isher]

the digital rights management sucks but i guess you need it... i only ever pay for lovely colourful well designed PDFs rather than the other text-based formats.

Sorry but you've hit a nerve here. Its never right to not pay for a book

Hold your horses, i agree! The digital rights management sucks not because it means i can't copy it. It sucks because i have to use a specific reader to open it and i am restricted what i do with that PDF (in my own house on my own equipment - not sharing with anyone else)

Your book is with that Elford chap at Green Books, right? Ask him, i paid about £20 each roughly for a few lovely PDFs from him that are DRM free. And, i have not shared them with anyone! I will not let them out of my sight. He trusted me - and i respect that.

And, the books over at Green Books fall into the lovely colour PDF category as far as i'm concerned! So, i am on your side.

[southeast-isher]

And when i said i only ever pay for lovely colourful well designed PDFs rather than the other text-based formats... that doesn't mean i download illegally the text-ones! It means i simply just don't buy them.

[southeast-isher]

There is a big big reason i haven't bought your book Booze for Free... i do not drink alcohol... so it would be a bit pointless for me...

[southeast-isher]

And, if there is a book i want that i like i have no problem in buying both a digital copy and a hard paper copy :-)

They each have their place in my opinion.

[merlin]

Quite so.

[Andy Hamilton]

Ooops! Fair enough southeast-isher, being a little touchy there ain't I, apologies!