01-20-2006, 11:23 PM | #1 |
MobileRead Editor
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Wall Street Journal bullish on e-books
In an article about the Sony Reader entitled A Hundred Books in Your Pocket, Wall Street Journal writer Terry Teachout sees a bright future for e-books despite a rocky past.
So will it fly? I don't know. Still, I'm certain that something like the Sony Reader will catch on, if not this year then in a short time. The phenomenal success of the iPod strongly suggests that many, perhaps most, consumers are ready to start buying digital books on the Web and storing and reading them electronically. E-books could also change the way we read, and more importantly, how books are published as lesser known and "Long Tail" niche-market authors self-publish, disrupting the entire publishing industry. With the lower barriers to entry and self-publishing opportunities that e-books provide, lesser known authors can build a fan base and get "discovered" just as EarthCore and Ancestor author Scott Sigler has done with his podcast novels. Many of these differences will arise from the way in which the e-book encourages self-publishing. Best-selling novelists, for instance, will soon be in a position to "publish" their own books, pocketing all the profits -- but so will niche-market authors whose books don't sell in large enough quantities to interest major publishers. Are we now in the early stages of an "E-Reading 2.0" era as new e-book readers are about to hit the shelves, publishers are jumping onboard, and newspapers are experimenting with using them for digital distribution? Has the industry learned from the past, and is the mass market now ready to give e-books a second chance? Read the full article here. Related: CEO of a top 10 book publisher writes about e-books, De Tijd and iRex to launch digital paper delivery service |
01-21-2006, 08:32 AM | #2 |
Is papyrophobic!
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The only thing of which you can be certain is that the existence of the e-book will cause the authors of the 21st century to go about their business very differently than did their 20th-century predecessors.
I hope she is right. Until now it seemed that authors and publishers alike were the most inflexible and resistant to changes of the 21st century. |
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