Are e-readers still too underdeveloped to be worthwhile?

thekingbeyond

Recently bought a kindle, found I am reading more with it. Also have picked up several free books for it that I would have probably overlooked in paper form.

Noggin1980

Went to buy a kindle this morning for my mum for christmas, planned to get her Stephen frys biography to go along with it. Then I see it's gone up £3 in the last few days and is now £4.50 more expensive than the hardback Due to the agency pricefixing thing.

My interest has just droped massivly and I'm feeling kinda disapointed she was going to get a great present for christmas and now I just don't know. She won't be willing to pay that much extra for a book just for the convinence.

Idiot publishers just like the music industry going to end up hurting the authors and pushing people towards piracy.

EDIT - I guess I'll look again in a few weeks and see if pressure has changed their mind, looks like some of the stephen king books that were more multiple times more expensive for the kindle version than the paper backs (£17.99 vs £4.99) have now changed back to being cheaper than the paperback.

confused88

Can't Amazon get rid of the publishers ?

mug

Eventually I can see authors doing direct deals with amazon and the like but I guess it could be a bit awkward because they would be piggy backing on the marketing done but publishers. It would have to be a another version with different artwork etc.

Steven

No, because they have contracted with the author for the rights in the works

Or yes, if Amazon gave them a gazillion £/$

GasDad

Quoting myself

I've now been given the Kindle as an early xmas present - started reading John Grishams latest on it last night - after 20 pages I'd forgotten I was using the kindle - I was just reading

Now if only they did a waterproof version for the bath.

Ian J

I bought that six weeks ago for £8.10 then noticed a couple of days later that the price had gone down to six pounds something so it's almost doubled since then

gordy11

Bought my wife one and she says its brill, lasts nearly a week on 1 charge, and easier because she can
lay down and not have to flick pages.
ps
it recharges in about a hour

hamthekam

they need to sort out the pricing. should be less then half the price of a paperback, which you actually own if you buy it.

confused88

You own the digital copy too and it doesn't weight a thing when you have it in your bag nor you can damage it by spilling coffee on it.
So why should it be any cheaper?