Superstars and Outsiders in Online Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Electronic Books
Superstars and Outsiders in Online Markets: An Empirical Analysis of Electronic Books
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DOI：
10.2139/ssrn.1967426
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发表时间：
2012-10
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
D. Bounie;Bora Eang;M. Sirbu;P. Waelbroeck
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文献类型：
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作者：
D. Bounie;Bora Eang;M. Sirbu;P. Waelbroeck
最近电子书销量的快速增长给出版商和书店提出了一个关键问题：电子书是蚕食纸质书的销量还是增加了纸质书的销量？在这篇文章中，我们比较了2007年11月至2010年7月期间在www.Amazon.com上出售的纸质版和Kindle电子版的畅销书。使用计量经济学方法，我们发现电子书蚕食纸质书的销售更有可能发生在由成功作家撰写的超级明星作品上。然而，我们发现一个成功的电子游戏的新细分市场，不是最畅销的印刷格式出现；如果没有新的Kindle商店，这些书可能会不受欢迎，因此这个新的分销渠道扩大了市场。我们将这些游戏称为数字外来者。后者的特点不仅是价格较低，而且发行日期也较早。它们还包括仅以电子格式发布的标题。然后，我们认为电子书增加了旧纸质书的市场生存能力。最后，我们确定了一类我们称之为“印刷首选”的书籍，它们是印刷书籍中最畅销的书籍，但由于颜色、图形或非线性导航的需要而不是电子书，这是当前一代电子书阅读器不太适应的一种风格。
Recent rapid growth in electronic book sales has raised a critical question for publishers and bookstores: do e-books cannibalize or increase print sales? In this article, we compare the best-selling titles sold on www.Amazon.com in print or electronic Kindle formats during the period from November 2007 to July 2010. Using econometric methods, we find that the cannibalization of print sales by e-books is more likely to occur for superstar titles written by successful authors. However, we find that a new segment of successful electronic titles that are not best-selling in print format emerge; these books would probably have been unpopular without the new Kindle store and therefore this new distribution channel has expanded the market. We refer to these titles as digital outsiders. The latter are characterized not only by lower prices but also by older release dates. They also include titles that are only released in electronic format. We then argue that electronic books increase the market viability of old print releases. Finally we identify a category that we call print-preferred books that are top sellers in print but not as e-books for reasons of color, graphics, or the need to navigate non-linearly, a style to which the current generation of e-book readers are not well adapted.