E-Books, Enhancements and the Evolution of Reading

By Bob Hughes - Aug 03 , 2010

The e-book is not only here to stay, I think it’s likely to become the form through which most books are read in the very near future.

We know that Apple has sold several million iPads in just a few months, and that as a result of that popularity (part of it stemming from its stylishness, and the way it allows readers to peruse e-books in color), Amazon has reduced the price of its Kindle to $139, and Barnes & Noble is stepping up efforts to increase sales of its Nook. Amazon has sold about two million Kindles, and Barnes & Noble about 600,000 Nooks.

Old-fashioned analog books still sell more copies overall than e-copies of books, but that’s likely to change as more and more people move on to digital media devices. The paper-and-cardboard book won’t disappear, though: it will become yet another option for our niche-centered world, and consumers will have the choice of downloading a title, ordering it online or even going into a brick-and-mortar store to buy it.

I was out of the country for a few months and what struck me when I first rode the subway again in my hometown of New York was how many people were reading something on either their iPad or their Kindle. Now, New Yorkers read on the subway – it’s one of those refreshing thing about this hyperactive town that people use their travel time to soak up literature or business or whatever. But it wasn’t until I got back home from Europe that I saw so many people reading on those sleek electronic tablets. People read on the metro in Paris, too, but mostly old-style books or magazines. Rarely e-readers. The e-reader, in whatever form, has taken hold here.

And American publishers, usually so slow to respond to market trends (other than signing up another author to write a vampire series), are releasing “amplified” versions of novels, featuring scenes from movie adaptations, for example, and “enhanced” e-books, featuring videos and photographs and up-to-date interviews. These new versions are designed right now for the iPad – the Kindle remains a rather clunky device, and it doesn’t handle video at all.

But this embedding of video text within books is only the first step in what is surely going to be a continuing refinement of e-books. It will change the nature of reading, making it that much more actually interactive. Remember when you had to put your book down and link to a website to find out more about your author, on his or her stodgy old web page?

I think this is a great trend, and shows not only the primacy of the printed word – in whatever form – but also how books ( in whatever form) remain a starting point to begin a conversation, to engage the public beyond the book itself. To grow business.