Australia Radio National recently did a radio program on e-books at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Of the 4 panelists, only one actually owned an electronic book reader. A number of benefits were cited of e-books, including convenience of purchase, lower book prices (especially compared to the prices of printed books in Australia), and better access from rural locations. However, the overall the impression was that printed books and traditional bookstores will continue to exist for some time. One of the panelists stated that printed books will still constitute 70% of the market within a decade. Another panelist felt that bookshops will continue to exist because they are a nexus of social activity.

Let me be the first to say I love bookshops and have a large library of printed books. That said, these people clearly did not get the memo from Jeff Bezos that the number of e-books sold by Amazon has already overtaken hardcover books and it will overtake paperbacks by next year. The recent launch of the ipad, multimedia e-books, and this week’s launch of the third generation Kindle (only US$139) are going to accelerate the process. Having used both e-books and printed books for some time, all I can say is that many of the complaints people mentioned in the podcast have been addressed, or are being addressed, in the newer ebook readers. Change is happening faster than many people think. This week alone I bought 7 books on Kindle for a course I’m teaching, and I have no complaints.

One way to address the gap between perception and reality is to allow more customers to get their hands on an e-book reader, such as at retail outlets and other public places. From personal experience, people who complain about e-books are often surprised by how usable they are after I’ve put an actual device into their hands for the first time. I’ve also noticed that at a lot of places where e-book readers are sold, they are displayed all wrapped up or inside glass cabinets, rather than in a way that invites people to experience them. This is is something e-book retailers such as Amazon and B&N should address, maybe taking a page out of Apple‘s book to make the shopping experience much more hands-on.