What's This? Good News? Read All About It!

Along with cell phones and MP3 players, will we soon be toting around e-readers for a daily fix of news, blogs, magazines, and the latest best seller?

Much has been said about Amazon's Kindle wireless book reader since its launch last November. It sold out in less than six hours and made the cover of Newsweek — oh, yeah, along with Amazon C.E.O. Jeff Bezos. The headline: "Books Aren't Dead."

Quite the contrary, in fact, when it comes to e-reading. E-book sales rose 59 percent last year, to $31.8 million, according to the International Digital Publishing Forum and Association of American Publishers.

Just last month, Silicon Alley Insider reported that Evan Schnittman, head of business development for Oxford University Press, was "stunned" by the "magnitude" of sales of Kindle-formatted titles. He didn't say how many Oxford did sell, but said he originally expected to sell only 200.

Amazon, too, is mum about specific sales figures, though it happily reported that the wait for the out-of-stock $399 device can take up to several weeks.

Is this a revolution? Evolution? Or a publishing fad? Novelist Marc Acito weighed in.

After checking out a friend's Kindle, Acito, author of the New York Times notable book How I Paid for College and the upcoming Attack of the Theater People, said it didn't beat seeing his own book in print for the first time, but he could sure get used to it.

Acito said Kindle's size and heft felt right, the page turning feature isn't disruptive, and being able to order a book and have it appear instantly felt like the stuff of science fiction. More importantly, he added, it provides a new channel of distribution for authors.

"From an environmental standpoint," he said, "it's far more sustainable than using all that paper."

Acito added that the biggest advantage is the price of downloading a book, which starts around $10. Amazon said that 100,000 books are available at its Kindle Store.

"The most exciting possibility, however, is for the future of textbooks," says Acito. "Imagine how great it would be to go from class to class with just one little e-reader. Whichever company can get them into schools could make a fortune."

by Andrea Chalupa