E-books niche growing, but people still love paper

More than four months after Amazon.com released the Kindle, no one is sure whether the latest e-book reader is really hot - or not.

[Eliza Doinglittle]

Ebook piracy is already up and running. Pressure from publishers and authors shut down an ebook sharing forum at the weekend.

[April L Hamilton]

I think the ebook revolution will happen, it's just a matter of time. Eventually there will be a generation of kids raised with as much, or more, electronic print as hard copy, and to that generation the paper book will seem inefficient and old fashioned compared to a paperback-sized device that can hold an entire library's worth of content. Given how comfortable today's teens already are with technology, the growing numbers of people of all ages who get their news online instead of from the papers, and the rise of Web 2.0, we may already be on the precipice. I'm reminded of the automatic teller machine (ATM); at first people were suspicious of them, but now it seems ridiculous that at one time, you had to visit a teller window during business hours anytime you wanted cash. The article asks if authors could one day bypass publishers altogether to become their own bosses, and I've done just that with ebook and print on demand technologies. http://www.aprillhamilton.com

[avagee]

Amazon has received a lot of media coverage recently, but most people probably don't realize that they probably already own a fine eReader - their cell phone. It's hard to beat the portability of adding books to something you always carry with you. Depending on your model and carrier finding and putting books in your phone can be a simple point and click exercise.

Check out http://www.booksinmyphone.com to give it a try - they give away hundreds of pubic domain and creative commons books for phones.