What could possibly make books sexy again? I buy a lot more music digitally than I ever bought on CD. The reason is simple. It's incredibly easy to buy on-line. I can browse efficiently and download in seconds, and services like emusic help direct me toward interesting choices, some of which I NEVER would have been exposed to otherwise.
People who talk with nostalgia about independent book stores say the same thing. It's the special shelf of new offerings that they like, or the salespeople who have real knowledge.
I like browsing for books in stores. But blogs, digital reviews, and Amazon have largely taken over and enhanced my book buying decisions.
How many more books would people buy if they could download them more easily? I have so much music on my ipod I can't even listen to it all. That doesn't stop me from downloading more.
Until recently, we've been waiting for a good digital reader. I'm dying to see a Kindle in real life, but have heard great things about its quality and ease of use. Just today I came across Stanza which is a software platform that works right off your iPhone. According to a press release, 40,000 books are downloaded daily.
That sounds like the beginning of a new era in e-books to me. Now, if I only had an iPhone...
1 comment:
Hey, nice blog.
I downloaded Stanza on your advice. I'm not really crazy about reading long things on the iphone, though. As nice as the screen is, it's just not that comfortable.
Also, if you want more current books, Stanza has some teasers from a few publishers. Actually buying the full digital book and getting it onto the iphone looks like a fairly cumbersome process, though.
I'm interested in the kindle, too, though a few bloggers I read have labeled it fundamentally flawed execution of a good idea.
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