Much, if not all, of the growth of electronic books will be directly related to the Kindle. This was the topic of much discussion at BEA over the weekend. The New York Times ran a piece about the kindle and its reception at BEA. The main competitor to the Kindle is the SONY Reader, which has been around since 2006.
I don’t have a kindle or a SONY Reader and therefore have yet to experience reading on small screen, but I can say that after a week of traveling with bags heavily weighed down with books, I can definitely see the appeal. However, I would never take an electronic device to the beach (a place where many people find themselves getting good reading time while on vacation). The Kindle, unlike the Sony Reader, can also download daily newspapers and magazines.
The New York Times reported that publishing insiders are also gravitating towards the ease provided by the Kindle. Random House and Penguin have given their entire sales force team electronic readers so that they don’t have to carry around as many galleys and copies of books.
