[SensualPoet]

I know, I know ... the title sounds slightly racy (), but it's actually a reasonable view of the state of the e-reader landscape. The whole article is worth a read: http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/n...oks14_CV_N.htm and there are many snippets that reinforce how far ebooks have come in 2010 so far.

E-book sales make up 9% of the consumer book market. Through August, their sales are up 193% over a year ago, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Previously, it's been Random House execs talking about 8-10% of their entire sales being ebooks by the end of 2010. Here's what HarperCollins said:

HarperCollins CEO Brian Murray reports "a sea change in the past few months" among new best-selling books: "On some books, the e-books are outselling the hardcovers."

Although not everyone agrees. Of course, someone has to be really, really wrong.

Grove/Atlantic's Morgan Entrekin says that "the change will not happen as fast as it has happened in the music business or even in the newspaper and magazine world." He sees a substantial market for physical books for at least another 20 to 30 years, "but eventually, 30, 40 or 50 years from now, e-books will be the predominant form."

And a noted author chimes in that it might be a bit sooner than Grove/Atlantic's 2050 and beyond view (as in drop the trailing zero and divide by 2!):

Novelist Stephen King, who says he does nearly one-third of his own reading on an iPad or Kindle, sees e-books becoming 50% of the market "probably by 2013 and maybe by 2012."

Most surprising, and it's actually something not raised even at Mobileread all that often: ebooks pay for the investment in a reader in relatively short order for those who actually use them regularly. It's easy to save $10 much of the time ebook vs hard cover, and in Canada, ebooks are almost always cheaper than paper where mass paperbacks, let alone trade, rarely fall below $10-$12 (trade generally hovering close to $20).

Most, but not all, e-books are cheaper ($9.99 to $16.99) than the print versions ($25 and up for hardcovers). And thousands of titles (from classics in the public domain to self-published) can be downloaded for free.

The cost of the device ranges from $99 for the most basic to $499 or more for Apple's iPad, which can be used for much more than reading books. But prices have dropped. The first Kindles cost $399 in 2007; the newest models start at $139.

The article also carries a number of observations by "bibliophiles" also known as consumers and readers including a 9 year old with a passion for Percy Jackson & The Olympians.

As stated, worth a read.