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You are here: Home / Blog / Children’s books triumph over threatened e-book takeover | The Australian

Children’s books triumph over threatened e-book takeover | The Australian

November 21, 2015 By achuka Leave a Comment

from The Australian

“I think the (global) industry has seen off the threat, to be honest­,’’ Ms Drake said. “The growth in e-books is stagnating across the world, particularly in America. A couple of years ago, it was the great threat; it hasn’t really­ worked out that way.’’

Ms Drake admitted that “we all suffered to a certain degree when Borders and A&R went under’’, as those collapses entrenched­ the notion that bookstores were doomed.

However, alongside retailers such as Dymocks, Big W — which claims to be the nation’s biggest bookseller — realised kids’ books were key to holding back the digital tide. This is because­ most parents want to limit the time kids spend in front of screens.

“Parents don’t encourage their kids to read (e-books),’’ said Ms Drake, adding: “We deliberately engin­eered our range to be more appropriate for children, because we saw that that’s where the growth was going to be.’’

When the influential yet little-known bookseller started at Big W in 2008, children’s titles accounte­d for about 35 per cent of the discount department store’s book sales; now that is closer to half. Dymocks, meanwhile, has seen a 30 per cent rise in children’s book sales since 2010.

Social media-obsessed teens have also spurned the e-book revolution. Ms Drake said: “Where you’d think teens would be a signif­icant e-reading population, it never went that way. And certainly, with a phenomenon like Twilight or John Green, it was importa­nt (for teenagers) to have the artefact (the print book), and to be seen with the artefact.’’

via Children’s books triumph over threatened e-book takeover | The Australian.

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Filed Under: Blog, Books Tagged With: digital, ebooks, print

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