实体书还有市场吗?
就算你认为实体书永远都有存在的必要,但是一年内你自己又真的买了几本呢?不管怎样,在酷爱看书的英国市场,实体书终于实现了四年里的第一次增长。
测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识:
understate 低估了[ʌndə'steɪt]
Enchanted Forest 绘本《魔法森林》
rebound 回弹[rɪ'baʊnd]
intricate 复杂的;错综的
aesthetic 美学的;审美的[iːs'θetɪk; es-]
revamp 修补;翻新[riː'væmp]
阅读马上开始,建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间,对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。
如果您读完全文用时为: 那么,您的阅读速度相当于 每分钟阅读的英文单词数
5分55秒 母语为英语者的朗读速度 140
3分0秒 母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250
2分34秒 母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350
0分15秒 母语为英语的速读高手 1000
UK physical book sales rise for first time in 4 years(750words)
By Robert Cookson
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UK sales of physical books rose for the first time in four years in 2015 on the back of the craze for adult colouring books, while ebook sales by large British publishers fell for the first time on record.
The Publishers Association said the figures showed that “those who made predictions about the death of the book may have underestimated just how much people love paper”.
Physical sales were up 0.4 per cent to £2.76bn in 2015, while digital sales fell 1.6 per cent to £554m, the first drop since the trade body started recording ebook sales seven years ago.
However, the figures do not include sales of self-published titles or those published by Amazon or certain other digital media companies, so they understate total British ebook sales.
Adult colouring books, such as Johanna Basford’s Enchanted Forest and Millie Marotta’s Animal Kingdom, helped power the rebound in physical sales.
Six of the top seven non-fiction paperbacks in 2015 were colouring books, which feature intricate designs and have been embraced by people looking to take a break from digital media.
Publishers have also boosted physical book sales by investing more money in the production values of their titles, such as the special edition of Alice In Wonderland on its 150th anniversary.
“There remains a special place in the consumer’s heart for the aesthetic pleasure that printed books can bring,” said Stephen Lotinga, chief executive of the Publishers Association.
The fall in ebook sales came after Waterstones, the UK’s biggest book retailer, revamped its sales strategy and last year decided to stop selling the Kindle, Amazon’s ereader.
The Publishers Association, whose members include HarperCollins and Penguin Random House, said the decline in ebook sales in 2015 was “too small for us to make any claims for big shifts in consumer behaviour or make predictions for what lies ahead”.
Joseph Evans, analyst at Enders, predicted that ebook sales would increase in the years ahead as a growing number of books are being made available only in digital formats. “Self-publishing is only going to get more popular among authors and more accepted by readers,” he said.
请根据你所读到的文章内容,完成以下自测题目:
1. When did the trade body start to record ebook sales?
A. 2005
B. 2010
C. 2008
D. 2014
2. How about the actual ebook sales, comparing with the trade body’s figures?
A. identical
B. more
C. less
D. not mentioned
3. What kind of books were popular among British as mentioned?
A. colouring books
B. encyclopaedias
C. dictionaries
D. detective fictions
4. Which book retailer r decided to stop selling the Kindle?
A. HarperCollins
B. Penguin Random House
C. Enders
D. Waterstones
[1] 答案 C. 2008
解释:2015年电子书销量出现有记录以来的首次下滑,7年前开始正式记录。
[2] 答案 B. more
解释:由于这个数据没有包含作者自行出版的电子书作品或亚马逊和数字媒体公司的产品,所以实际销量是比数据多的。
[3] 答案 A. colouring books
解释:通读全文可知,去年绘本的盛行对实体书的销量回暖有重要作用。
[4] 答案 D. Waterstones
解释:在去年调整了策略的是英国最大连锁书店的Waterstonesz。