Recently, Amazon announced that ebooks sold for the Kindle now outnumber the hardcover books they sell.
The Kindle, in case you are a technosarus, is an electronic reader developed by Amazon.com that allows books to be downloaded electronically and read on the device. The Kindle eReader has been around since 2007, but only recently came into its own.
For most of the time since it was released, it has been far too expensive for most people at a whopping $259 – just to read books. However, sales of Kindle devices have tripled since Amazon lowered the price of $189 to complete with the Apple iPad.
Its latest generation is smaller, lighter, faster, and at $139 with wi-fi — it’s a sellout.
Amazon also offer its Kindle software app for devices like the iPad and iPhone, so the future of the e-book seems secure even if Amazon is not the one selling the hardware for reading them.
The electronic reader gives people easy access to a vast library of books. Amazon alone has over 630,000 books available for the Kindle.
This revolution has led some experts to predict that the hardcover book is “dead” and that electronic books will replace physical books as the dominant reading form as soon as five years from now.
Fortunately for those who write the words being read, people will not quit reading. Only the form in which the words are read will change.
