It seems a trend at some coffee and sandwich shops in New York City is to ban computer use, at least for a few hours each day. In a New York Times article on August 2, author Nick Bilton relates his experience with “please put down the Kindle sir.”
The interesting bit of news from the article (for me) comes near the end of the story:
On Monday, Ian Freed, Amazon’s vice president for digital, told CNet that the number of e-books Amazon sold in the first quarter of 2010 had tripled compared to a year earlier.
Amazon also recently said that e-books have been outselling hardcover books for several months. And Apple said in early April that iPad owners were downloading hundreds of thousands of e-books from the iBookstore.*
E-books are now outselling hardcover books at Amazon—who woulda thunk? E-books are certainly no passing fad or trend. Authors need to pay attention to this very important market. In fact, e-books are a new market forming around us, and a golden opportunity for enterprising authors.
*New York Times (Aug 2) – No E-Books Allowed in This Establishment