Quote:
Originally Posted by mgmueller
My personal guess: In the US, commuting and traveling long distances is way more common than in Germany for example. So maybe customers in the US are way more interested in "travel companions".
Personally, I love having my gadgets while "on the road". Having hundreds of books with me. Being able to check restaurants and hotels on my tablets. But looking around, I don't see an "explosion of eBooks".
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The European market (excluding perhaps the UK) is very different from the US/Canadian market when it comes to e-books. Commuting distances are shorter, and the availability of e-books is very much an issue.
Here in France, the French publishers are used to their "privileges" - including the "no discount" rule on p-books. They're loathe to give this up so you find the price of French language e-books is pretty high (IMO, anyhow) plus there is the full-rate VAT to be paid (rather than the low rate on paper based publications).
English language publishers have a much larger potential market world-wide to amortize their fixed costs, too. But e-readers are starting to show up in the standard electronics shops here, along with e-books to read on them. So, the explosion is coming.