TOC Posterous

Takeaways: ebooks will probably canabalize 5-10% of print book sales within five years; book retailers (and other businesses) must choose whether to A) allow new competitors to take away market share or B) launch initiative to compete with themselves and keep the market share changes in house; the most popular device for reading ebooks is currently the iPhone; the most common prices for ebooks are $10, $9, $7, $3, and $11; the perceived value of an ebook seems to be lower than a print book which may be due to several factors including 1) the lower aesthetic qualities of an ebook--they just don't look or feel as good as a print book (users want control over font and other settings while publishers want to lock in what they believe are excellent design attributes), 2) no lifetime guarantee of future support for proprietary ebook formats and/or devices from companies that may cease to exist (print books are easily passed from generation to generation), 3) lack of full featured social environment that readers now expect with anything digital, 4) lack of integrated and synchronizable audio format--and perhaps even a bundle of the ebook with integrated audio as well as the print edition (Thomas Nelson's NelsonFree editions), 5) lack of ability to lend ebook to another person (could be additional charge for full ebook or an excerpt could be free) which would generate goodwill between giver and recipient and would help generate viral demand via word-of-mouth promotion, and 6) lack of ability to share ebooks with family members (or at least one significant other) and build a shared library together