Driven by Amazon's popular Kindle device, e-book sales worldwide will jump from $323 million in 2008 to nearly $9 billion in 2013, according to a new In-Stat forecast. E-book shipments, meanwhile, will soar from under 1 million to almost 29 million in the next five years.
Amazon has wisely released Kindle apps for every major smartphone platform and the iPad, raising the number of prospective customers for ebooks into the tens of millions. I suspect more Kindle books are being sold for non-Kindle devices than the genuine reader from Amazon.
I read from a smartphone, I set the background to black, the letters are white, the screen brightness is conveniently adjusted in the application itself. The eyes don't get tired.
I have Kindle for PC on the laptop but hate reading onscreen so I tend to filch the wife's Kindle. She has a Fire, too, so there's no need for her to be greedy ;)
I don't think I'd ever read a book on a phone. It's for talking to people, for crying out loud!
I'm reluctant to upgrade to a Smartphone anyway. I'll stick with my armoured Samsung for now, which doesn't seem to object to immersion in mud or water buckets :)
I have a kindle which I got as a Christmas present and use both this and books as don't think I could give books up altogether. Like Nicola says, I like the sample option on the kindle and it certainly cuts down on the holiday baggage, but I love the feel and smell of books and can happily spend hours in a book shop. Plus I think physical books are very important for children and are much more visual for them so they make it easier to encourage and nurture a love of reading.