Comments on: Will e-books ever be a best seller?

Sony's Reader has been little more than a footnote so far. Now Amazon is looking to light things up with its new Kindle device.
Photos: Amazon's Kindle device

[Lindawig]

E-textbooks

I have long thought the best use for e-books is in replacing weighty, expensive textbooks that students lug for miles back and forth across campus. I can't imagine their replacing cloth and paper books that people might want to keep and reread.

[gadget girl]

electronic books

I read comments up to this point; nothing I haven't heard before. In a literacy class, a classmate said as many did that she liked the feel of the books. (Many of you wrote of liking to read; there are many people who hate to read because the task of reading from a book is too difficult).
Onward to pros and cons of electronic readers.
PROS: many libraries loan the readers preloaded w/book; libraries also loan access to electronic/digital text and books on tape/CD to MP3/iPAQ/iPOD, etc through library.net; high school student pay over $500 in book fees for 4 year and carry about 30-40 lbs of test (junior/middle school is only about 10 lbs less); all text publishers must provide electronic/digital access to their text (the texts are online or available). Project Gutenburg was promoting text by putting it into digital format. Type size can be changed in the format and the background often can too. EREADERS are the present not the future
CONS:thee is not a standardized format (the BETA/VHS argument); some books are only available in certain formats (I was going to borrow my daughter iPod mini to download an electronic text (I have the hard copy - it's heavy); & what happens when you have no power to recharge it (snow storm or something).
By the way, no need to carry the Libray of Congress in your backpocket, search "LOC"

[TheHavocs]

Selection & Convenience there's the rub...

The crux of the problem is selection and convenience. It's not convenient to carry another electronic device, another thing to get lost or stolen. That's why I love my little Palm Pilot Tungsten E2. It's my scheduler, my games, my music, and my reader. I have four 1 gig memory cards that conveniently slide into my case and depending on what I want to do at the time, bing, I slide one in and there I go. Convenience.

I currently am reading Dune. I got it in a PDF form, but that program's too clunky so I made it into a doc in Word and put it on my card. Although there is an E-Reader program on my device I like reading in the Word program through Docs To Go. I can edit and bookmark as I like. Sure it's a little small, but I can change the type size, and like I said, I have everything in one unit.

I could see having a solitary reader for college students, having them load all the textbooks they need, high-school and grade school as well. That could be a way these readers could find their target market. Keep those textbook costs down! But they'd have to lower the overall price of the units.

And then there's selection. I would love to have
my library include all my favorite books that I have read and love to reread over my lifetime, but most of them are not available. Sites may say they have 80,000 selections, but out of those selections I can't find the books I want to read. Most recent publications are available and then there's the classics which are common domain, but books from the 60's 70's through the 2000's are very hard to come by.

Will print writers suffer the same problems of book sharing that musicians do? How will they collect their copyright money if books are shared and zapped to other readers for free? Will online libraries be able to offer good selections because of this? Will they develop a software that degrades an e-book after a certain time to stop the sharing? Or will up front payments to writers have to be enormous for them to provide their works increasing the costs of downloads?

I don't know about you, but I'll be looking forward to reading an article about this.... just don't know whether I'll see it in a newspaper, or on my computer screen.

[kelloggirl]

Just bought a Sony Reader - love it!

I go through books very quickly, and find myself wanting to buy and read so many books, but since I have limited space in my home, I'm hesitant to buy too many books. I'd need a library the size of the Library of Congress. The Reader is the perfect solution for me because there's so many books I want to read but don't want to have permanently sitting around. Plus, I've recently started traveling a lot and hate dragging heavy hardcover books with me.

[dorlene]

Half the size, half the weight, half the price, twice the features...

Since purchasing a Palm TX over two years ago I?ve used it to read dozens of ebooks, including many out-of-copyright classics downloaded free from gutenberg.org. Some, such as Tolstoy?s 1500-page War and Peace, would be simply too heavy to carry around.

The Palm is half the size and weight of the Kindle and available new on Amazon.com (from Richmond Wholesale) for $199. Other advantages over the Kindle and Sony Reader:

1) The size ? 3? x 4-3/4? ? makes it an easy fit for shirt or pants pocket, so it?s instantly accessible. The Kindle and Sony are too big.

2) The backlit screen is readable in low light, no light, in fact any light except bright sunlight. You can read in darkened theatre before the movie starts and in the middle of the night without turning on a light and disturbing your bed partner. The Kindle and Sony paper-like screens are not readable in the dark.

3) The small screen size (about ¼ the size of a print page) is actually an advantage because it?s easier to locate the spot where you left off and more frequent page turns convey the satisfying feeling of rapid progress. The battery-saving automatic turn-off has trained me to stay focused and read faster because I don?t want the screen to go dark before I finish the page. I often read a few ?pages? while waiting for an elevator!

4) Purchased ebooks can be shared with other Palm owners, so you can buy one copy and read/discuss it with friends and family at the same time.

All three ereader devices -- Palm TX, Kindle, and Sony Reader ? offer additional features that are an improvement over print books:

1) You can change the font size to suit your comfort level. No book is off limits because the type is too small or too crowded.

2) You can download and carry hundreds of books anywhere and read whatever suits your mood.

3) Clicking any word instantly brings up the definition in your choice of dictionaries.

4) You can make notes without writing on a page and bookmark pages you want to return to without turning down the corners.

5) When you come across the name of a character you can?t recall you can search for prior references.

While the Kindle offers a much larger selection of books than the Palm TX (90,000 vs. 17,000) plus newspapers and magazines, having a Palm has motivated me to read and enjoy many classics that I would not have read otherwise and which are more satisfying and enriching than most of today?s best sellers.

[obi_3x]

eventually, just not now

it's another gadget that reads documents...yay
my pda does that and so does my portable media player. also the price of ebooks particularly the good books dont differ that much from their paper counterparts as publishers are still 'testing the ebook waters'so to speak
and there really is something to be said about turning the pages of a book and putting it down satisfied after it's finished as opposed to pressing the power switch
therefore while i think they will become big eventuallly, now is not the time

[c-not-k]

Depends on DRM

I've read all 317 (to this point) comments, as I'm interested in the Sony reader. My only pause is the availability of the books I like. A universal format for popular literature is what will determine the future of these devices. (Sony should know that; Beta vs. VHS and Blu-ray vs. HD-DVD.) The copyright and DRM issues will be tough nuts to crack, as the content providers don?t have a handle on this digital domain yet IMHO.

Mostly, I plan to use it to read technical manuals (I work IT.) I saw a 505 demoed and the text was quite legible. I don't mind having another gadget; I already have an MP3 player, handheld GPS, Smartphone, and laptop. I prefer a device optimized for its intended task.

[blaknwht]

Ebooks

I've had an ebook reader for YEARS. It's called the Franklin Ebookman and it only cost me about $70. I can change the font size, read .txt, .html, mobipocket and ebookman files. It's about the same size as a regular hand held. Yes, it only holds 16 mb. But who needs more than that. I regularly have about 20 books in it. It goes everywhere I go. I love it. Franklin no longer makes these which is a shame but they're still sold on ebay for less than $100. It's not a color screen but I'm reading a book not watching TV.

Nice thing about ebooks is that they usually cost less than a paperback or hard cover edition because there's no cost to the publisher to print it.

If these ebook readers were priced more reasonably I'd probably try one. But their price is crazy.

[Laylajean]

I like 'em a lot

I've been reading ebooks on my Palm TX for about 3 years now and pretty much echo the comments of the other Palm TX reader. I commute to work on the bus, and they've been particularly handy there. I have about 30-40 books on my Palm right now, and since I always have it with me, I always have something to read. I don't know that I would buy a dedicated reader. As someone said, one more thing to carry, but for the pda, definitely. They are hard to read outdoors (practically impossible), but I wouldn't want to give up paper entirely... I also wouldn't want to give up ebooks.

[deez1]

Ebook

Not too long ago I had this same idea. However I think the paper industry and or publishers will fight the popularity of this tooth and nail. Copy write protection will be some what hard to save with devises like these. I do have a few ideas that expand upon this concept that could really boost its popularity and lower the readers initial costs but, I will keep these to myself for the time being unless someone would like to pay me for my input which I doubt. However, it could be worth millions.

[theemk]

from cave walls to stone tablets to papyrus to...

ebooks will eventually be a common thing, but to predict the exact device is another thing. Will it be Amazon's or Sony's or an unknown company's product that will be the product of choice.. that remains to be seen. But just like other forms of communication, we shouldn't expect it to be an overnight adoption. ah, how our society always expect instant gratification. dommage.

[Zarinas1]

E-Books are great!!

They just need a lower price, which I'm sure will come with a little more time.

As someone else stated, it would be fantastic if this could take the place of school books! It could save the school systems money, save trees by the millions, and keep kids from having to lug around 20 lbs. of books.

As for me, I'd love to be able to download the next book in a series I just finished and just decided that I can't wait to read it; be able to search for bits that I want to find in an article or story; highlight things I want to remember. All great!

Now if the price would just come down some.

[egil7erik]

e-book, best seller?

I have no idea in this age, anything can become popular but books have taken a hit from video. I know that e-books are still too expensive for me to try, lose and break. I also know that the music subscription download service's leave too much to be desired by me. I suspect the e-book service providers would be subject to some of the same inherent problems. I also much prefer to own the hard copy for the difference in cost.

[hitno]

E-Books on Iphone - BooksoniPhone.com

20,000+ books for free on iphone

why to buy anything else?

http://BooksoniPhone.com

[james g gallagher]

e-books

I need reference material on a Palm. I wouldn't use it for pleasure reading.

[dsarokin]

e-book vs print books

It will be interesting to watch global trends in book publishing, to see if e-books ever steal the thunder from print books, the way e-music seems to be cutting into "printed" music on CD's.

There's an interesting list of sources of statistics on book sales at Google Answers:


http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=246739
Global Book Sales


Worth a look.