E*Reading Is Easy
By: Gloria McDonough-Taub | Senior Editor For Blogs
One of life’s greatest little mysteries is why digital books haven’t taken off. I don’t get it. I own the Sony Reader and I love it--especially when I travel.
Gone are the days of carrying suitcases full of books--now I can carry dozens of books all on one thin, lightweight digital book.
I’m sick of the critics who bash digital books. If it had been left up to them, we’d still be carrying around our portable record players looking for extension cords when we wanted to hear some music on the patio. Why can’t these “publishing purists” see that these digital readers can do for books what the Ipod did for music?
Digital readers are the future and today the future just got brighter.
Sonyannounced a new software update that will allow Reader owners to buy electronic books from stores other than Sony’s.
Some may see this as Sony letting go of its e-book business model – but I say they are actually opening up and making themselves even more appealing to consumers. Sony’s bookstore has about 45,000 books compared to Amazon’sKindlestorethat offers about 140,000.
Today’s announcement could help boost the interest in e-book industry – an industry that is small but slowly growing.
In its story on this announcement today the AP reports that the main e-book publishing trade group The International Digital Publishing Forum, said last year’s e-book sales for about a dozen US publishers were nearly $32 million dollars and those were the wholesale numbers.
Questions, comments? bullishonbooks@cnbc.com
