E-books Might Be Flourishing After All

Publishing these days truly is a see-saw world. Two of my recent blogs addressed the poor e-book sales from Barnes & Noble, and another discussed an article which claimed that dedicated e-readers could become obsolete. Additionally, a number of sources have been saying that the e-book revolution is slowing down, and that about 75% of all books sold are still sold in print. All of those articles and sources make good points, but here’s the other side of the coin.

According to an article in Digital Book World, more than half of American children are now reading books on tablets, which is double the portion of adult readers using the devices. Keep in mind that the study DBW quotes came from PlayScience, a New York-based, children’s digital research firm. The study also claims that a third of the children who read e-books read them more than once a day, and 85% read an e-book at least once a week. If young readers are growing up reading digitally, then the e-book industry will indeed flourish. To read the piece, go to http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/more-than-half-u-s-kids-reading-ebooks-new-report-shows/

Another article touting the prevalence of e-books got some attention when an ABC News article reported that a community library in Texas will be going paperless later this year. That’s right, the library will offer nothing but e-books for patrons, along with 100 e-readers, plus a selection of computers and tablets. Patrons will be able to either borrow e-readers or bring their own. Is this how the future will look? If so, I can’t say I’m ready for it. A photo of the library in the link shows that it looks more like an Apple store than a library. It will be interesting to see if this experiment works. You can find the article at http://news.yahoo.com/library-without-books-bibliotech-open-193118588--abc-news-tech.html