Here are some reasons why
e-books aren't taking off as the industry thought they would:
- They are a solution in search of a problem. There's little they can do that regular paper books cannot, short of searching and indexing, which aren't useful features to most readers of popular fiction.
- Regular books don't require batteries.
- Regular books don't crash.
- If I misplace a regular (paperback) book on the subway, I'm out five, maybe ten bucks. Less if I bought it used.
- There's a huge market for used mass market books, which are a great value at typically half the cost of a new book. I buy many of my books used. No such market yet exists for e-books.
- You can easily shake the sand out of a regular book after a day at the beach. You can probably even still read one after dropping it in the pool.
- Paper is easy to read in bright sunlight, even with polarized sunglasses on.
- When I'm finished with a regular book, I can loan it or give it away to someone else. I don't violate any copyrights by doing this, nor does it require the other person to own any special hardware, nor does it cost me much if they never return the book (see subway example above).
- One of the great joys of reading books is going to a bookstore and browsing titles. Downloading books from a website or loading them up from electronic media is an activity that carries little sensory appeal.
- Children learn to read from the printed page, and most of us have spent our lives reading that way. Many people find LCD and CRT displays more difficult to read than printed pages.
- With regular books, I can have several open at a time, and easily refer to all simultaneously. Or I can put one aside and pick it up weeks or months later from the same spot. Or I can have one book in progress on the nightstand, another on the porch, and another somewhere else. All of these methods of reading are more easily accomplished with paper books than with any e-book system requiring dedicated hardware and separate media.