If you found yourself reading more frequently after you bought an ereader device, you weren’t alone. People who own ereader devices read crazy high amounts of books each week, according to a new study by the business consulting firm L.E.K. It appears the idea that reading is a dying activity is, as ever, a fallacy. At least for ereader owners.

The average time spent reading in the U.S. is 7.1 hours a week, says L.E.K. Ereader owners, however, average nearly 2 1/2 times that at 18.2 hours per week. Over a third of those extra books are considered “incremental,” meaning they wouldn’t have been read otherwise.

The study compares media consumption across all content channels, including TV (still the king), movies, music, and Internet. But the big news of the study is just how voracious ereader owners seem to be. Why? It seems to come down to these three benefits:

• Affordability – Ebooks are cheaper than printed books, and most people are on restricted budgets in this economy. One of the big media/marketing angles when the Kindle launched was that it would save the owner money over time. Although that may not be exactly accurate, the current ecosystem for ebooks lets a consumer spend less per book. You can stretch your book budget with an ereader.
   
• Discovery – L.E.K. is guessing at this one, based largely on the fact that many respondents said they felt there was a better selection of ebooks compared to other retail channels. I agree with L.E.K. that what they’re probably describing is the ability for ebook retailers to customize their inventory pages based on your past purchases and likes. I’d probably buy more books at a bookstore if there were a shelf up at the front that had titles hand-picked to appeal to my interests.
   
• Accessibility – If I’m using a Kindle or an iPhone or iPod Touch, I can finish a book at three in the morning and immediately purchase the next in the series, without leaving my bed or sofa. Hell, it’s even easier than ordering a movie through my Xbox or cable box. Here’s a real world example: two weeks ago, I was reading a preview on the subway on my way to a meeting, and I bought the book as I came up to street level and was walking down the sidewalk. It was a real purchase for the publisher, but practically an afterthought for me as far as fitting “shopping” into that day’s busy schedule.
   

“Hidden Opportunities” [L.E.K. Consulting via MobileRead]

(Photo: unfoldedorigami)

A while back, I tried to brainstorm some ways that digital books can deliver value that print simply can’t. Thriller writer Joe Konrath (also known as horror writer Jack Kilborn), has one-upped me with his recently posted “average reader scenario” set four years from now.

Imagining himself as an average reader with a $99 ebook device, Konrath tosses out idea after idea to illustrate how digital publishing can change the reader/author experience.

Read the rest of this entry »

There’s no such thing as a two-paned e-ink device in the pipeline at Asustek. Give up the dream, dear reader. Today the company provided information on upcoming product launches, and yet  they were fairly quiet about ereaders. In fact, the one bit of ereader info in the DigiTimes article is attributed to unnamed “industry sources,” and not from Asus’ CEO Jerry Shen:

According to industry sources, the Eee Reader line will include 6-inch and 9-inch models, both featuring a grayscale touchscreen display.

In other words, more of the same.

If you’ve seen the working demo model of the Asus two-screen device, you can see that it’s more closely aligned with netbooks and notebooks, only without a physical keyboard. Asus has always said that their dual-screen device would have color displays and be able to play video, which isn’t a capability with any current e-ink technology that I know of.  Pixel Qi is doing some awesome stuff with their specialized screens, and I’m crossing my fingers that Asus will be using them in their dual-screen device (which actually would make them a new sort of ereader/PC hybrid)–but I have no reason to believe they will.

But my point is that the new ereaders coming soon from Asus are very likely going to be nearly identical in technology as current devices. What we can hope for, in terms of improvements, are lower price points and an open approach to formats.

[Asustek aims to ship 1 million ultra-thin notebooks by end of 2009] [DigiTimes via liliputing]

Kevin Maney’s new article in The Atlantic, “The Kindle in Crisis,” doesn’t have a whole lot of new stuff to say on the topic of whether the Kindle is a good device or a bad device; if he wanted to talk about how the Kindle is inconvenient, there are plenty of usability and design issues to consider that he doesn’t.

I do think this quote is funny, though:

For example, the Kindle lets readers down with respect to one subtle but powerful element of the traditional book’s appeal: its role as an identity marker. Pulling out a particular book on an airline flight or in a doctor’s office can mean staking a claim to being a particular kind of person.

I’ve read a similar comment once before (see section III), and both times it made me smirk and lapse into my later teenage years, when everyone and everything ran the risk of making me seem “pretentious,” perhaps the worst fate that could befall me at that age. As a result, I lost pretty much all desire to use consumer products as cultural signifiers. Since a book is rarely handmade, isn’t it, too, a consumer product–the same as flashing a Nike logo on a shirt, or carrying a purse festooned with goofy YSL monograms?

My point, I guess, is that I don’t want other people to judge me based on what I’m reading, and I don’t read for other people. Or at least I strive not to (nobody’s perfect).

So that’s  a point for ereaders, as far as I’m concerned. Unfortunately, I can’t go so far as to say that they make you look less pretentious, since you’re trading off book jackets for a “lifestyle device” that, like it or not, will generate a lot of opinions about you among strangers.  Just note the animosity many have toward people with tell-tale white iPod earbuds.

“The Kindle in Crisis” [The Atlantic]

(Photo: Ed Yourdon)

Over the past few days, it seems I keep running into the same sort of post over and over on various blogs. The headline is something like “[Name of blog] now available on your Kindle!” and then announces that yes, you can now subscribe for $1.99 a month to said blog and receive updates without lifting another finger.

Why is this happening all at once? Because Amazon just launched Kindle Publishing for Blogs, which lets anyone with a blog sign up and list their content on the Amazon Kindle Store for free. (Until now, you had to be invited by Amazon to participate.)

A few things to note:

• the $1.99 subscription price is set by Amazon;
• blog owners get 30% of that fee, while the rest stays with Amazon;
• there are other, cheaper options if you read a lot of blogs or you’re on a tight budget.

Is Kindlerama up there on the Amazon Blog Store? You betcha! I fully do NOT recommend you subscribe to ANY blogs through Amazon, but in the event that anyone wants to subscribe that way, I’m not going to deny them.