Crazy deal on Reader.. $99 plus $150 worth of free books!

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Eppythacher, based on the time marks between notice going out on Mobileread on the sale, and being notified by members that they were all gone, I'd say the time frame was more like 4 hours!

Anyway, it's clear that Sony can sell the Reader much faster at a lower price, and I'm sure they're trying to figure out what that lower price is. Maybe they're shopping around for a cheaper manufacturer (because we know they're not building them themselves)... once the prototypes are out, others can figure out a way to copy them cheaply... ahem, less expensively. They could even license the design to another company or companies altogether, and commit to supplying regular firmware updates, or sell it outright if they don't like the profit line.

So even if Sony gives up on the Reader, it doesn't necessarily mean it's gone for good. A good product is a good product, and someone else can make it sell.

[Nate the great]

It was more like 15 hours, not four.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Oops... looked again (I should've double-checked instead of responding from memory)... it was more like half a day or more. Still not too shabby for selling 1000 unadvertised Readers!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Still not too shabby for selling 1000 unadvertised Readers!

Even though many of them were sold to obvious profiteers. I would have preferred it personally if the seller had restricted the deal to one per customer - a lot fairer than the situation we had where some people bought half a dozen while many other potential purchasers were left out in the cold. Spot the eBay sellers quoting Tiger's incorrect description of the Reader...

[eppythacher]

All good points. Since patents are such big bizness Sony should license the eReader patent to other companies so we can get cheaper readers and Sony gets a cut of all the sales, like they should have done with betamax. If they don’t then someone else will, like with the Ipod. There are lots of other MP3 companies but the reason the Ipod has a lock is because of status and style. If another company came out with a reader at $100 I don’t think anyone would stick with sony out of brand loyalty. People that read books prefer substance over style

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by eppythacher

This whole situation is odd. At the $100 price point it 1000 units were sold out in 24 hours? Is anyone here an economics major? If sony can sell the PS3 at a loss to sell games why can’t they sell the Reader at a loss? Or at least break even? The reader, I feel, can be as big as the iPod. As for the people that can’t afford the $350 all I can say is that it’s well worth the money if you like to read. It’s like we’re in the Old West, circa Little House on the Prairie. In those days apparently whole families would save up a year to buy ONE book. I’m sure you guys can skip lunch for 2 or 3 months to buy the eReader. Knowing what I know now about the Reader I would skip lunch for 3 months for it. That being said, it looks like Sony has to lower their prices. I wish everyone could own a Reader. Then we can look down on the Ipod people lol (owns a MP3 player).

The problem is more to the acceptance of the ebook in itself. This morning I bought a (P)book for my dad's birthday. I managed to get into an argument with the book sales person just talking about the existence of ebooks. She didn't even know that they existed and instantly rebelled against their being. No matter about saying that books exist in e-format for publishing before print could slow her down in her indignation. She was stabbed to her soul. My wife interfered just at the point before it could get out of hand. A love for paper books is as strong as a religion.

In the same sequence as to move from paper book to digital book, music has had an other step; the CD. That was the first important adaptation from analog support medias to digital MP3. Once MP3 was made the more practical approach with the aid of portable devices, acceptation shifted to a more positive stance.

The addition of eink to other forms of existing ebook devices will positively catalize a transition of written word from paper to ebook. There is still ebabel to contend with but Digital Editions might just stabilize the trajectory enough to help the ebook coast towards success.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

The problem is more to the acceptance of the ebook in itself...

In the same sequence as to move from paper book to digital book, music has had an other step; the CD. That was the first important adaptation from analog support medias to digital MP3.

Don't forget an important difference here: The album-to-CD switch took years. The public was finally forced to "accept" CDs, because the music industry stopped producing albums. I know I held out for years, until the artists I listened to were no longer being issued on LPs, before I ponied up for a CD player and bought one.

E-books aren't being "forced" on anyone, as if paper has become too expensive, been banned for frivolous entertainment use, or outright replaced with something better (though, with the emergence of e-ink, maybe "reusable paper" is still in the future).

So we'll just have to wait out the "Give me paper or give me death!" naysayers as people everywhere discover the advantages to e-books, find their preferred reading hardware, and switch on their own.

(Flag on the play: I posted this once, and it apparently disappeared.)

[JSWolf]

But the problem as I see it is if dead tree editions go up in price, then the ebook editions will also go up in price. Even though the ebook editions don't need to goup in price. They just will since they are some % off the retail dead tree price. If ebooks would stay at a reasonable price even if the dead tree edition has to go up due to rising printing costs, then that would make it easier to choose the ebook vs. the dead tree edition.

The thing is, there are dead tree books we want because of collecting them. And ebooks will never replace that.