I think people still do collect the fiction hardcovers for their favourite authors - I know I do, and I prefer the hardcovers but it seems many people have cut back on the non-essentials (like fiction books) this year and are being more frugal in their spending habits.
I still sell quite a few fiction hardcovers, but mostly on am*zon, and now mostly only within my own country - Canada. I still send the occasional one if it's a more scarce title to the U.S., but mainstream books (fiction, anyway) seldom leave the country for me anymore. As far as overseas, I pretty much only get orders for non-fiction, or more scarce titles as the shipping costs are too high. We don't have services like M-bag unfortunately.
As far as getting the book counts up here, I'm trying too. I have to give most of my time to the venues where I do make money as it's been terribly slow me here - hopefully that will change in the near future.