Pericles: "an e-book will ... become an unnecessary hurdle."

Nah, eBook readers are just a passing phase, like GPS's, iPod and cheap cameras. They will all be subsumed into the mobile phone. It is already happening - you just aren't young enough to see it. You have to try it to understand, because at first sight the idea of reading a book on a tiny mobile phone screen sounds insane. The reality is it works very well for a certain style of book - one without pictures that you read linearly from begining to end. In other words the novel.

For novels the page size is irrelevant. Flipping the page becomes pressing a button, and the lost bookmark problem disappears. You always have it on you, so at that unexpected delay in the doctors reception you can start reading. In dark places it comes with its own backlight which happens to be very unobtrusive. It can store literally hundreds of books, and it can let you download more on the fly.

Unlike novels technical books don't translate to the phone so easily. The ability to jump around that came with pages isn't automatically there so the technical eBook has to be re-written to use hypertext. Also illustrations don't work so well on a small screen. A small win is you email any notes you "write" in the margin. Outside of books, reading the current newspapers works really well on mobile phones, but glossy magazines are hopeless.

The longevity issues you mention are more about making the right choices - the electronic equivalent of choosing low acid stock over rice paper. The DRM issues you mention are a mess, but I note that music world appears to be moving away from it. The music publishers love it of course, but their customers hate it and newer entrants are more than willing to take advantage of that. Thus the biggest music publisher in the world now isn't EMI, its ... Apple. If the book publishers aren't careful, they will suffer the same fate.

It's nice that you agree with me, rstuart.

>>Pericles: "an e-book will ... become an unnecessary hurdle."
[rstuart:] Nah, eBook readers are just a passing phase<<

I hope you turn out to be right. As I said, if publishers decide to base their distribution on e-books, they will be an unnecessary hurdle.

>>They will all be subsumed into the mobile phone. It is already happening - you just aren't young enough to see it.<<

Thanks for the gratuitous reference to my declining mental faculties, I shall no doubt find an opportunity to return the compliment at some point.

Your logic - for the use of the phone as a delivery point - is not particularly persuasive, in my view.

>>reading a book on a tiny mobile phone screen sounds insane. The reality is it works very well for a certain style of book<<

In theory. And optometrists around the world hope that you are right, of course. But the number of people who are willing to make a habit of reading books on their phone is probably fewer than you think.

>>The longevity issues you mention are more about making the right choices - the electronic equivalent of choosing low acid stock over rice paper.<<

Not from the user's viewpoint, they're not. Selecting the paper type is a publisher's role, so the equivalent electronic choices are in the hands of Sony/Amazon/Apple etc., not the consumer.

>>The DRM issues you mention are a mess, but I note that music world appears to be moving away from it.<<

As with any move of this kind, pricing will be key. The music industry quickly settled around a realistic price point, I wonder if it will be as easy for book publishers.

Especially given the ambitions of the authors...

"...17.5...20 ...25 per cent. These rates can only be good news for writers, who at present expect a royalty between 8 per cent and 10 per cent for a conventional paper book."

It's going to be fun watching it evolve.

Unless you are a writer, of course.

25% of... what?!!

Pericles: "Thanks for the gratuitous reference to my declining mental faculties"

You have declining mental faculties too? Hasn't shown up here yet ... oh wait, there is that thing where you equate pets with slavery. However it wasn't about that. Beyond a certain age (25?) the urge to try new things that appear to have a low chance of success declines. Instead, we start calling that sort of thing the follies of youth.

I noticed it only because I am in the industry, and think mobile phones are the next computing platform. I decided that was "obvious" a decade ago, and it would happen any day. At my age a decade is a long time to wait. Much longer and I would be in my dotage.

Pericles: "I shall no doubt find an opportunity to return the compliment at some point."

I have no doubts either, and would not miss it for the world.

Pericles: "The music industry quickly settled around a realistic price point, I wonder if it will be as easy"

You think the traditional music industry had much to do with it at all? Because they refused to make their music available electronically, their customers did it for them - for free. Their response? They sued their customer base en-masse. While there were doing that technology firms like Apple and Big Pond experimented with different models and price points, and come up with some that worked. When the music industry finally ran out of feet to shoot it found itself shut out from retail and manufacturing of CD's. Right now, they still control the bulk of the artists and back catalogues. If history repeats itself and the technology firms start signing artists, its all over - the old music firms will cease to exist in a few decades.

And you call this an easy transition? God help the book publishers then. Actually, God isn't showing much interest because right now it looks like the only fight is over who gets the best bits of their carcass - Amazon or Google.

Ever since reading Julian May's <i>The Many-Coloured Land</i> in the early 1980s, I have been confidently predicting the eventual replacement of the mass-market paperback and daily newspaper with the electronic "reading plaque".

The only hurdle at present is that most people find reading on-screen uncomfortable, due to the glare of the screen. When e-book readers are able to successfully mimic paper - which I believe is not very far away at all - then the likes of the Kindle will really take off.

Personally, I believe it will be a good thing, on balance. Mass-consumption literature will become electronic. Just as some have rediscovered the joys of vinyl records (some of us never forgot them), there will always be a place for paper books as collector's and first editions.

The only concern I would have is the potential for governments and/or private industry to "disappear" certain literature into an Orwellian "memory hole". The recent case of Amazon remotely deleting copies of Orwell's books (ironically enough) from peoples' Kindles stands as a chilling warning. Similarly, Apple's policing of its iPhone apps should also raise concerns about just who owns what in the world of digital publishing.