The market for e-book readers - and the e-books to go with them - absolutely exploded in 2009. E-book readers have been around since 1999. The original e-book reader was the Franklin eBookman. Sony launched their PRS reader in 2006 and the original Amazon Kindle was released in November of 2007.
However, it was launch of the upgraded Amazon Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 that saw e-book readers really take off. In the summer of 2009 Amazon followed up with the release of the large display Kindle DX. By the close of the year Sony had released three new PRS readers and Barnes and Noble had entered the market with the Nook reader.
The Kindle quickly became Amazon's best selling product and, during the festive season of 2009, became the "most gifted" Amazon product ever. Meanwhile, more e-book readers were being released, Apple even got in on the act when they unveiled their iPad - customers were spoiled for choice.
The market had developed, and was continuing to develop, at a very rapid rate. Although the public had quickly got used to the idea of e-book readers, the publishing houses were struggling to keep up. Some of the major publishing houses took exception to cheap e-book editions being made available immediately alongside the newly released hardback edition.
The normal publishing cycle of hardback edition followed, usually some months later, by the paperback version has now been supplemented by the addition of the e-book version. There's no reason to delay the release of this - and it would be inadvisable anyway, after all, e-book reader owners are likely to be avid readers and are therefore in the target demographic for new book releases. Of course, customers aren't going to be willing to pay anywhere near to the same price for an e-book that they would for a hardback, or even paperback, edition. And why should they? There's no paper, ink or bindings involved and the delivery charge for a downloadable e-book is a fraction of a fraction of the cost to deliver a physical book.
The advent of e-book readers has resulted in some difficult negotiations between book retailers and big publishing firms. Amazon's policy of placing e-books and $9.99 lower even lead to McMillan books being removed from the Amazon site for a short period. As already stated, the owners of e-book readers will be among the best customers of the major publishing companies. Unless these publishers adapt to the new technology and turn it to their advantage, they will lose customers and eventually go out of business.
However, it was launch of the upgraded Amazon Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 that saw e-book readers really take off. In the summer of 2009 Amazon followed up with the release of the large display Kindle DX. By the close of the year Sony had released three new PRS readers and Barnes and Noble had entered the market with the Nook reader.
The Kindle quickly became Amazon's best selling product and, during the festive season of 2009, became the "most gifted" Amazon product ever. Meanwhile, more e-book readers were being released, Apple even got in on the act when they unveiled their iPad - customers were spoiled for choice.
The market had developed, and was continuing to develop, at a very rapid rate. Although the public had quickly got used to the idea of e-book readers, the publishing houses were struggling to keep up. Some of the major publishing houses took exception to cheap e-book editions being made available immediately alongside the newly released hardback edition.
The normal publishing cycle of hardback edition followed, usually some months later, by the paperback version has now been supplemented by the addition of the e-book version. There's no reason to delay the release of this - and it would be inadvisable anyway, after all, e-book reader owners are likely to be avid readers and are therefore in the target demographic for new book releases. Of course, customers aren't going to be willing to pay anywhere near to the same price for an e-book that they would for a hardback, or even paperback, edition. And why should they? There's no paper, ink or bindings involved and the delivery charge for a downloadable e-book is a fraction of a fraction of the cost to deliver a physical book.
The advent of e-book readers has resulted in some difficult negotiations between book retailers and big publishing firms. Amazon's policy of placing e-books and $9.99 lower even lead to McMillan books being removed from the Amazon site for a short period. As already stated, the owners of e-book readers will be among the best customers of the major publishing companies. Unless these publishers adapt to the new technology and turn it to their advantage, they will lose customers and eventually go out of business.