E-Book Revolution Spreads Out
Evidence of the spreading e-book revolution is everywhere — if you look for it.
A senior executive at a top-five New York publisher — a friend of mine — has just completed her leave-of-absence to live out her dream year living in Florence, Italy. She told me a couple of weeks ago that she returns to a company that is almost unrecognizable. Everything is being reorganized to take account of the digital age, she told me. To her surprise, she’s being put through a crash “retraining” course to bring her back up to speed — and that’s after filling her senior post for years. She’s not even sure she will “pass muster.”
Most of us by now have heard of Amazon’s Kindle. A close friend of mine, hardly one to embrace new technology, is very impressed with it, after handling it for the first time two weeks ago. Nothing stands still; there are new developments on the horizon. TechCrunch reports that two new hardware versions are in the works: a smaller, cheaper version due out before Christmas, and a larger [perhaps 8.5 x 11] version slated for release next year.
The Kindle, of course, has competitors, some of them even beating the Kindle to market by months, if not years. Not surprisingly, Amazon competitors are turning to these alternative e-book readers. The Borders website is currently promoting books for the Sony Reader. And a couple of weeks ago, I read, if my memory is correct, a report in a European computer magazine that Barnes and Noble will be turning to the iRex Iliad. All of these e-book readers have been previously reviewed here — just click on the e-book section under the TOPICS sidebar.
But that’s not all. There are other readers in the mix. One new reader features“foldable” pages, just like a real book. Another features two facing pages. I keep up with these developments at jkOnTheRun and several other blogs. I will try to keep my readers more or less up to date.
Let’s face it: the world of books is changing — FAST. Writers simply MUST keep abreast of fast-moving developments. [Sadly, in my local ”writer’s group,” members are old, very set in their ways. They mostly refuse to acknowledge the changing world. They will simply be left behind. They will never even see this post as blogs are also well beyond their purview.]
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Comments
Hi Tom. Nice article. From my perspective you know a technology is gathering pace when the UK gets its act together and begins adopting it. We are notoriously slow at adopting most technology but finally there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the ereader/ebook ‘tunnel’ (and not before time).
Before the summer we had NO ereaders in the UK but now, in the space of a couple of months, we have the iLiad being sold at limited Borders bookstores, and the announcement that the Sony PRS-505 reader, from September 4th, will be getting sold via Waterstones bookstores, Sony Style and an undisclosed selection of ‘electrical retailers’.
So indeed Tom, the ebook revolution does appear to be spreading everywhere. Heaven knows when Amazon UK will get their act together, and start shipping the Kindle, but at least we are taking a step in the right direction.
Robert Burdock Robert, thanks for your comment. I visited your blog PAPERLESS UNDERGRADUATE, which I find very interesting indeed. Especially your recent post about the expansion of the Sony Reader to handle other e-book formats. Anyone reading this should click on Robert’s name in the comment above to journey over to his blog. It’s worth the trip.
Tom Colvin Mr. Colvin,
Thank you for the kind words and the ‘link love’ I’m honoured (oh and apologies for the double-post, The first time I posted it seemed to mess upb ,ut obviously it didn’t :o))
Robert Burdock 
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Hi Tom. Nice article. From my perspective you know a technology is gathering pace when the UK gets its act together and begins adopting it. We are notoriously slow at adopting most technology but finally there seems to be a glimmer of light at the end of the ereader/ebook ‘tunnel’ (and not before time).
Before the summer we had NO ereaders in the UK but now, in the space of a couple of months, we have the iLiad being sold at limited Borders bookstores, and the announcement that the Sony PRS-505 reader, from September 4th, will be getting sold via Waterstones bookstores, Sony Style and an undisclosed selection of ‘electrical retailers’.
So indeed Tom, the ebook revolution does appear to be spreading everywhere. Heaven knows when Amazon UK will get their act together, and start shipping the Kindle, but at least we are taking a step in the right direction.