E-Book Benefits

In case you didn’t know, it is Read an Ebook Week. This is an annual event which runs this year from March 2 to March 8, 2008.
EPublishers Weekly offers up-a list of 30 Benefits of eBooks:
It’s an interestinng list and you may agree and disagree with some.
Teleread reports that Fairfield Research predicts that there will be 16 million regular e-book downloaders possible in a few years,
“With strong demand for the Kindle spurring renewed interest in the e-book market, a research group has released a report based on a consumer survey that found that 17% of book buyers said they would purchase a copy of a book in some digital format.” – Jim Milliot, Publishers Weekly.
Details: “The number of consumers who will regularly download a book to an e-book reader could reach 16 million adults in the next few years,” PW paraphrases a conclusion from Fairfield Research. Are we in e-book hype territory again? Or is Fairfield actually on the mark, given the existence of the Kindle and success of the Orman book download? A few more tidbits from PW:
“The study…found that 17% of book buyers had already purchased an e-book. [Fairfield] makes a distinction between e-books that can be downloaded to a device and/or printed out and digital books that must be read on screens. In the latter case, downloading a book to an e-book reader was the clear preference for how consumers would like to view digital books, with other alternatives generating no more than a 10% purchase-intent level.”
And is the market very big? Teleread also reports that American e-book sales in 2007, by “12-15 trade publishers,” jumped to $31.7 million or 23.6 percent higher than in 2006.
Stephen