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Tim O'Reilly says Gentlemen Prefer PDFs

Oreilly PDF booksTim O'Reilly writes that O'Reilly customers show strong preference for downloadable PDFs over print books.
Based on a little less than 3 months of data, we see that of the customers who've bought Rough Cuts, 60% chose the PDF-only option; 36% chose the bundle of PDF plus print book, and only 4% chose to pre-order the print book only.
Tim also shares that reference-oriented books have the highest percentage of PDF-only, and those that provide "fun" are still bought somewhat more in print. Ajax Design Patterns sold 67% PDF-only, while Flickr Hacks sold only 45% in PDF-only format.

I can think of two reasons for the success of PDF. One, desktop search software with PDF indexing add-ons are in abundance now. Second, PDF delivery is instantaneous, the typeface, layout is preserved. And all machines have Acrobat Reader by default.

The only concern here is book piracy. How does Tim plan to deal with ebook pirates, that's not clear yet.

Related: Adobe PDF vs Microsoft XPS (formerly, Metro)

Source: O'Reilly Radar

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