Into The Future With E-Book Readers

E-book readers suddenly became all the rage during 2009. The launch of Amazon's Kindle 2.0 and Kindle DX readers created a good deal of publicity for these devices. Other manufacturers responded with their own readers - Sony with its Daily Edition and Barnes and Noble with the Nook reader. Other companies - such as Microsoft and Apple - made it known that they had devices of their own in development and scheduled for release in the near future.

Since e-book readers are consumer electronics devices - and relatively new ones at that - it's easy to become swept away in the analysis of the technical specification of the various individual readers. The Kindle can download books wirelessly with no need for a broadband connection, a Wi-Fi hotspot or a computer of any kind. Barnes and Noble's Nook has a color screen, the Daily Edition reader from Sony lets you borrow books from participating libraries - and so on.

However, it's just possible that e-book readers could represent the biggest change in our reading habits since Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440. This innovation allowed books to be mass produced using paper instead of expensive parchment or vellum. The cost of book publishing fell dramatically and books were, literally, placed in the hands of the common man.

Since then, there have really been very few changes in the way that books are read. Certainly we have seen changes in printing technology - computers and word processing software have made the existing process more efficient and cost effective. However, the end result has been much the same. We sit and read books which consist of text printed on paper.

And the consequence of the unchanging end product also restricts publishers. A physical product is produced - at some expense - which also needs to be delivered, either to the point of sale or by direct mail to the customer's home.

E-book readers do not just represent a way of carrying out the existing process more efficiently. They completely change the rules, both for publishers and readers. For a start, there is no physical product. This means that there is less consumption of materials. No paper, ink, chemicals, bindings etc. And with no physical product, there are no delivery costs.

This means that e-books are not only cheaper to publish and deliver, but that they are - even considering the materials used in the e-book readers themselves - more environmentally friendly.

Publishers now have more possibilities for marketing both books and authors. If a publisher wished to highlight a particular author for example, then they could offer samples of their work either at very low prices or completely free. Another technique, which is rapidly growing in popularity, is to offer the first volume in a series free, in the expectation that the reader may go on to buy subsequent books in the series or other books by the same author.

The Amazon Kindle store contains a pleasantly surprising number of free Kindle books. All Kindle books, free or otherwise, have their first chapter made available as a free download so that prospective readers can sample the book before they buy. One possible benefit is that readers maybe encouraged to experiment a little and to try authors who they may have previously overlooked.

So, whilst the current focus on the high tech hardware is easy to understand, it will be the increased marketing opportunities and the increased ease of access for readers that will change the way that we read books in the long term.

Learn more about Amazon's Kindle reader and see how you can save money by downloading free Kindle books direct from Amazon's Kindle store.