About four years ago, my brother-in-law
bought my husband and I a Sony e-reader as an anniversary present. It was a
thoughtful gesture and a surprise, as he’d never purchased an anniversary gift
before. None was ever expected or needed, but perhaps he was eager to introduce
his writer sister-in-law to the world of e-books. At that time, my husband and
I didn’t own a smartphone or an iPad. So, following the instructions, I set up
an account and bought four books from it. While it was weird to read an entire
book from a screen (at that time I wasn’t reading novels on my laptop) I
quickly adapted and read those three book, and then after a few months I
stopped.
Part of the reason was that I still had a
large number of print books sitting in my office, waiting to be read. The other
was that I eventually purchased a smartphone and iPad which introduced me to
iBooks. As my publisher was also making my mysteries available on Kobo, I also
created an account with that company.
It seems that I’m not the only one whose Sony
is sitting neglected in a drawer. Sony hasn’t been able to compete in the North American market, so they’ve sold their digital stores to Kobo
(note that this doesn’t effect Sony abroad). It seems I will receive a link this spring,
allowing me to transfer my under-utilized Sony account to Kobo. I’m not quite
sure how this will work as it would give me two accounts with the same company,
or perhaps my Sony account will simply be absorbed into my Kobo account.
Dedicated e-readers might
already becoming a thing of the past. I have Kobo and iBooks on my iPad and my phone. I also borrow
e-books from my library. That’s how us active readers roll these days.
