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Will women dominate the e-book market someday?
December 30, 2005 | 8:09 am
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By David Rothman
The traditional publishing industry targets mainly women these days–to hell with the literacy crisis among males. But e-books are different, with gadget-loving men being the main buyers. Could this change? Already Harlequin has started an e-book series for women, and now Deborah Fallows of the Pew Internet & American Life has just written an important report suggesting that women will soon surpass men in total Net usage. E-bookers, pay attention. The simpler the technology grows, the more attractive the technology will be to women. I myself hope that e-book use can go on to thrive among both sexes. Meanwhile the razing of the Tower of eBabel and an end to Draconian DRM, two of the main factors complicating e-books, could help especially in the growth of e-books among women.
Excerpt from the Pew report: “Younger women are more likely than younger men to be online; older men are more likely than older women to be online: 86% of women ages 18-29 are online, compared with 80% of men that age. On the other hand, 34% of men 65 and older use the internet, compared with 21% of women that age.”
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Comments:
I noticed Harlequin’s rather extensive electronic projects a while back – see http://www.futureofthebook.org/blog/archives/2005/01/from_the_nouvea.html . Romances do seem to be an inordinate part of the ebook market right now, if you look at sales – readers tend to go through a lot of ‘em quickly. Harlequin’s noticed this.
Romance novels like Harlequins are essentially “disposable” literature, which makes them perfect for the current ebook market. Who cares if you can’t read them 10 years hence because the file format is dead, the drm provider is out of business, or you forget your decryption key?
I thought the number of women on line had already exceeded men, but with all the ads for sites like True who would have known?
In the mean time, I’ll order my copy of the recently released “The Conquering Sword of Conan” and revel at how men are being ignored by the publishing world
I can definitely see the possibilities for sales growth for romance novels in e-book form, particularly among professional women who would be more likely to carry a PDA or other small e-book reading device around with them. Reading romance novels (particularly with that legendary cover art) in public where you might run into someone could be unnerving in terms of maintaining one’s professional image. But unless someone’s looking right over your shoulder, the text on a screen could be anything.