A Tramp Abroad

Having expressed surprise at the sales of the Sony Reader just a few days ago, I have now seen TWO readers in the wild whilst tramping around the country.

I saw my first on the tube in London. It was being read rather ostentatiously, by a man in his late 30s or early 40s. I don't know what he was reading on it.

The second was being read by my neighbour on a recent train journey. Again a man, this reader was probably in his late 50s or early 60s and a peak over his shoulder revealed he was reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer which I imagine came free on the Reader.

These two sightings, though statistically insignificant, did make me wonder:-

• Are ebook readers more likely to by purchased by men indulging a stereotypical love of gadgets?


• If ebook readers are more likely to be owned by men will this lead to many/enough ebook sales given that most books are bought by women?
  
• Given that ebook readers are only likely to be bought by or for avid readers will they generate significant sales of new ebooks? After all, even an avid reader is likely to find plenty of unread classic titles amongst the 100 you get free on the Sony Reader.

Now if you were an avid reader and ebook reader owner you'd have access to the 26,000 classics from the Project Gutenberg collection (including today's inaugural speech from President Barack Obama). Given this, would you ever BUY an ebook?

Perhaps publishers of contemporary ebooks should hope that owners of ebook readers agree with Mark Twain, coincidentally of course the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, who described a classic as "something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read".