The e-book writes its second chapter

Will e-books and their readers take over from print matter?

They won't. They will coexist. They will complement each other. Ultimately, we will see more people reading books again than we did in the past.

Nielsen Bookscan doesn't track e-book sales: without independent and verifiable sales data how can authors and publishers scope sales and plan? Who is tracking the growth of sales of content and readers?

Obviously Amazon isn't getting tired of telling us how well e-book sales are performing, but they shy away from giving us any hard figures. IDPF is publishing industry statistics, collected from quarterly US trade retail e-book sales in conjunction with the Association of American Publishers (AAP). The statistics don't include the sales of readers, and they focus on the US.

What are e-readers' flaws and how may they be overcome?

The biggest flaw is the young age of e-paper technology. Until recently, most e-book devices shared the same display size (6 inch), smaller than a regular paperbook with less room to display text and/or graphics. With recent advances in the production of e-paper, Amazon was able to come out with the Kindle DX (9.7 inch) and Sony with the Daily Edition (7 inch). Another limiting factor is the lack of colour. Until now, we haven't seen a market-ready e-book device that features e-paper and colour. This is supposed to change in 2010, when alternative e-paper technologies, such as Pixel Qi, enter the market.

What value-added reseller channel strategies should e-reader makers follow? They can't all be Amazon or Google with access to the content so should they look at joining with ISPs or 3G mobile providers, for instance?

Yes, I believe this is the right way to go. Sony has indirectly shown, by giving up their proprietary format and embracing ePub, that it is not feasible to compete against Amazon as a provider of content. Instead, in the case of Sony, they do what they do best: produce high-quality hardware. In addition, with the introduction of the Sony Daily Edition, they have joined with a 3G provider to add additional value to their products.

Digital restrictions management: help or hindrance to the spread of e-books?

Help, because publishers require it to enter the e-book market, and we need the publishers / their content to make e-books successful; hindrance, because honest customers feel cheated and limited in their rights. Eventually, as e-books will move up the maturity curve and publishers won't have a choice but embrace them, DRM will disappear - just as it did for music from the iTunes store - allowing the consumer to be the judge of what's right and what's wrong, a flexibility that DRM couldn't.

Who are the typical e-book users you see in your community? For instance, are they consumers reading fiction or corporate keeping up to date with legislation, policies, technical manuals and training?

MobileRead is an online community where e-book newbies and industry veterans interact and share their experience with e-books and e-book technologies. MobileRead has over four million monthly page views, with half a million uniques every month. We have visitors from any spectrum, from big corporations to retired officers. We have folks from the army who visit our community from Kuwait (turns out that e-book readers are very convenient for them), and we have companies from the publishing industry looking for new ways to expand their electronic offering.

Given that we still lack a choice of devices with larger displays, however, the focus is clearly on consumers reading fiction, where display size is only secondary due to the reflowing nature of its content. To read technical manuals, textbooks and similar content, display technology will need to further improve.