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As regards textbooks and tech manuals in e- format: no current readers are adequate for textbook reading. Either displays are too small, or there is no method for getting to a certain page, or there is no easy method for going to footnotes, back-of-the-book reference sections, sidebars and the like, and then getting back to where you were. Most textbooks are in large page formats, printed in color and designed for ease of navigation. No e-reader can accommodate that. No e-reader allows for easy page-marking or underlining. An e-reader for textbooks and manuals has to be a specialized device. The Sony, the Rocket and its descendents and PDAs are not up to the job, and a laptop isn't an e-book reader.
As regards there being little or no market for e-books: it's the truth. We are the exception. We put up with tiny screens, file conversions and the like. Our wants and habits do not project into the wants and habits--and degree of toleration of shortcomings--in the general reading public.
I agree with nikokami that publishing, and the market, will evolve to accommodate e-reading, but current hardware, current formats, current commercial models and current DRM practices are not even remotely adequate. I know this sounds really negative, but these are the facts. Very few people (="nobody") are interested. It's not because they don't know how much great stuff is already out there. It's because the market is a confused mess.
Earlier models don't apply. Books are uniquely varied in ways neither we, nor the publishers, nor the hardware designers have yet noticed or acknowledged.
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