Quote:
Originally Posted by BKeeper
Almost nobody knows Bookeen in in Europe. Reading (the kind that involves more than 5 books a year) is a niche activity no matter how you look at it, ebook reading even more so. Plus almost nobody nows e-ink tech which makes all the difference with ebooks.
The market will remain small for another 2 years.
Bookeen could have a shoot at the Europen market if they could sing a distribution agreement with a somewhat famous chain named Fnac.
They sell books and electronics and are quite popular in France and other countries. They could open kiosks inside the stores to demo the technology, and assist non geeks with ebook purchases and downloads.
We are 2-3 years away from attractive ebook catalogs.
Anyway that's just me talking because they have already stated they have no plans for retail redistribution. (at the moment)
As for the US market, I don't think NAEB offers enough potential for bookeeen.
Still they are great guys and the make it easy for the geeks to get bookeen's reader.  |
Speaking as a NAEB corporate officer, I must admit that you're somewhat correct right now. We're small, very small. And we started out focused upon providing, at first, an eInk reader for participants at Baen's Bar. However, as we've gotten more involved in the project, we've come to realize that there are far more people who want to have access to ebooks - such as readers of Harlequin's lines of stories.
I think, even now, people who *expect* to read most of their purchases on an electronic device are still 'early adopters'. What needs to happen is getting dedicated ebook readers out to students, preferrably middle-school and high-school, but even college students would do for now, and get them in the habit of thinking about a decent-sized screen and ease-of-use that counter-balances the cost of the device. But it's still a drawn-out process.
Until buying a dedicated book-reader becomes a Hundred-Dollar purchase and the vast majority of new titles are released in the MMPB price range, most people are not going to want to own one.
Or so I believe.
Derek