70% Of Readers Ready To Buy Electronic Books

[Bob Russell]

Readers may be much more ready for e-books than we generally believe. Book Tech Magazine has a nice article about a recent study by the Open E-Book Forum which provides some compelling numbers, which confirm that widespread e-book adoption is inevitable, but is slowed by DRM and the publishing industry.

Here's an excerpt...

[font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular] [font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Consumer of Acceptance of E-Books Grows[/font] [font=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]

A new consumer survey finds 70% of readers are ready to buy electronic books if they can read them on any computer. The survey also finds 67% of consumers are ready to read electronic books, and 62% would borrow e-books from the library.

The research was sponsored by the Open E-Book Forum (OEBF), an industry trade association that promotes e-book technologies.

But if consumers are ready to thumb through electronic pages, sentiment among leading book publishers hasn't changed. They believe consumers and retailers still aren't ready for e-books.

[/font][/font]Note: Unfortunately, the article is stashed behind a registration requirement, but BugMeNot can help. If the link I gave above fails to work for you, then you may have to do a search on the article archives to find it yourself. Or it may still be on the front page.

Even better, if you're looking for lots of e-book articles, browse for additional e-book articles here! One of the interesting tidbits is in an article called "Expert's Page", and it has a very interesting point to make...

Copying is Good

In this age of Napster, book technologists and digital rights providers often suggest (incorrectly) that the electronic publishing industry requires more sophisticated copy protection and that consumers be taught that copying is illegal.

Did I mention that this idea is wrong? Copying is not illegal. Unauthorized copying is illegal And though it may surprise some, authorized copying of digital goods can be an e-publisher's best friend...