E-readers will save the publishing industry. E-readers will become the mobile equivalent to the eight track tape.
The answer, of course, likely lies somewhere in between these two extremes. But if you're a newspaper publisher facing a struggling -- some would say dying -- industry, it's hard not to get caught up in wishful thinking. And if you're a gadget fetishist, it's hard not to work yourself into a lather. At least two major e-readers launched in the past month (one just last week), and secret plans for e-readers from Microsoft and Apple have been leaking on blogs left and right. By early next year, we may be looking at a dozen entries in a category that was once a geeky cul de sac.
So are we all going to ditch paper and read everything on some sort of digital device? Probably not in 2010, but there's reason to believe that the audience for e-readers will grow significantly in coming years. Predicting an iPhone -- like breakout is perilous (and probably as likely as predicting the iPhone's huge success five years ago). Thus, few inside the publishing world realistically see e-readers as a lifeline; most view it as a promising alternative distribution channel -- and one for which they might actually get paid. (See also: "Digital Hot List 2009.")
Most also recognize that e-readers present numerous challenges. "There is an optimism among publishers," says Roger Fidler, program director for digital publishing at Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. "But nobody is seriously saying this is going to save the industry."
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