Let the Comic Book Rise again, All Hail the iPad, Marvel, and DC

I am one of those men who read the Marvel Comics as a kid and had secretly fantasised that the super heroes would make it to the big screen.  Thank God they did, and in spectacular style. The massive improvements in computer technology and special effects have ensured that any super hero can be brought to life.  However, does this mean that the comic book is dead? 

 
Many of the comic book establishments like Marvel found their sales fall with unimpressive figures over a few years. Hollywood might have contributed to this but this is debatable. I am sure that computer games did contribute to an extent in this decline. Suddenly kids were able to interact with their favourite characters. Although I am no fan of computer games (I just could not get into it), I am not against them either. I am fascinated though when I watch my nephews play games on their PlayStation. They seem to be in a world of their own, making the characters do all sorts of manoeuvres.  
 
The last time I read a comic book I was fifteen years old. Some thirty or so years later, I find myself reading them on an iPad. There are still outlets that sell comics but I would not be caught dead going into one. Why you may ask? I felt it was childish. Is it so wrong for a man of almost fifty to go into a comic shop? In some cultures (like mine), it is considered childish, while in others it is not.  In mine, however, a man my age could come up with the excuse that he is buying them for his kids. While plausible, it is still unacceptable especially if your children are old enough to do that for themselves. 
 
You might ask – and quite rightly, so – what it is the shame in buying comics for your kids. Absolutely nothing is the answer to that. I just found myself conforming to the norm (shame on me!). 
 
As time went by, I forgot completely about comics until a piece of hardware showed up. That hardware known as the iPad changed everything. I got one about two weeks ago from the UK and I unashamedly say it has not left my side since then except when having a shower. 
 
I am not going to go into any details; most of you already know how this delightful tablet works. As I studied the use of my iPad, I read an article on the Internet about the ten best iPad apps to have. One of the top ten apps mentioned was the Marvel Comics app. I immediately proceeded to the iTunes Store to download the app more out of curiosity. On installing, I downloaded a few of the free comics. I cannot tell you what a delight it was to read about the super heroes again. 
 
One such download was Civil War (2006) #1. I enjoyed it so much that I went on to download all six other episodes. The six episodes cost $1.99 each but I did not care. I wanted more; I began to think of what else I could read. I recalled battles of the past such as The Defenders versus The Avengers. I remembered characters like the Lizard and the Green Goblin. I remembered how we waited with baited breath on what the new episodes would hold. I found myself feeling the same way. I began to wonder whether men my age across the World felt the same way. I did not have long to wait. My older brother called me to say he had read a few of the comics and wanted more.

I have a new yearning in my soul; I want Marvel Comics to make holiday specials of three or even four hundred page long episodes. I know; Marvel could republish Spider Man versus the Lizard epic battles. Why not create a rift between the Fantastic Four and the Defenders? I am sure Marvel has all sorts of weird and wonderful characters we can enjoy. Eh, maybe I have gone too far in this request. Please tell me. 
 
So what are your conclusions I hear you ask. For one, the iPad has given me a gift I would not have had – reasons for an adult to read a comic again. The iPad has also put paid to the shame of going to a comic store – Marvel App Store. I also realise that I need to read works of fiction once again. I have not read fiction since I was eighteen. I can do nothing but thank the iPad for that. I also found that I have taken life a little too seriously. It is time to loosen up. 
 
As I mentioned earlier, I wonder how many more people feel the way I feel. I am convinced that the iPad could revive comic book reading even to those who never really did so as children. I hope someone from Marvel Comics might read this blog and consider what I have written. I am sure there are more people who would gladly pay for some good old-fashioned super hero entertainment. By the way, the same goes for DC Comics; I downloaded the app and have read a few stories, my experience, one word, awesome.

Comments from all the old men out there who are still in the comic book closet would be most appreciated. 

Why Nobody Will Buy a Color E-Ink E-book Reader

E-ink is one of the more unusual technologies to spring up in recent years. It's both more expensive and less versatile than LCD, a long-established product seen in everything from iPods to TVs. It's incredibly specific, but also incredibly good at its one job: reading text. 

E-ink e-book readers like the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook offer, in the opinion of myself and many others, the best digital book-reading experience available. The battery life is astounding (the new Kindle gets up to a month of battery life. An entire month!), they can be used outside without glare, and they quite simply look more like printed, physical ink and paper than any other display ever created. You can lose yourself in e-ink, which is about the best compliment I can give to a digital reader.

On the other hand, LCD devices in a similar package, including tablets like Apple's iPad, offer a passable reading experience on top of a whole host of features e-ink will never, ever be able to handle. E-book readers are better for books; tablets are better for everything else. So tablets and e-book readers exist in an odd sort of stalemate right now: neither can quite replace the other.

But I do believe that LCD and other, more modern displays (including Pixel Qi, LED, AMOLED, and countless other acronymic display types) will advance to the point where they offer a reading experience at least comparable to e-ink. Some have already been made--the iPad's IPS LCD display is better than expected in outdoor use, for example--and that's the wave of the future. And at that point, e-ink will die.

E-ink will die mostly because it fundamentally can't compete with tablets. That's why announcements like today's, in which E-Ink (it's a company as well as that company's main--or only?--product) claimed it will release both a color and a touchscreen version by early 2011, is so confusing. But color and interface are hardly the only obstacles e-ink has to overcome to compete with tablets: Its refresh rates make video largely impossible, it can't cram in enough pixels to make still photos look any more crisp than a day-old McDonald's french fry, and, most damnably, it's still extremely expensive.

I've used both color and touchscreen e-ink displays before. Before its untimely demise, I saw a prototype version of the Skiff newspaper reader with color, and I've used Sony's Reader Touch Edition as well. The Skiff's color was faded, like a photocopy of a photocopy, an extremely unimpressive display closer to old four-color comics than crisp digital imagery. Sony's Touch Edition suffers from enjoyment-killing glare and a slow response rate. While I'm sure the technology for both color and touch can be advanced, I'm not the least bit convinced that it'll ever get to the point where those features are competitive. By the time e-ink catches up to modern-day LCD (and that's assuming it ever does, which is a hefty assumption), LCD will have advanced as well.

Amazon showed that the way to make e-book readers sell like blazes is to lower the price to near-impulse-item territory. Its new $140 Kindle sold out of pre-orders almost immediately, and there's been more buzz around the next version than can be explained through hardware upgrades alone. It's a great reader, don't get me wrong, but its incredible sales numbers are due in large part to the price cut.

Color and touchscreen e-book readers would require a substantial increase in price, to accommodate the new technology. But that's exactly the wrong way to advance e-ink--the price needs to remain as low as possible. 

Why is E-Ink pretending that features like color and touch interfaces are important, necessary, or even desirable for its product? E-ink readers like the Kindle offer the best digital reading experience on the market--why muck it up with expensive and useless features?

E-ink may not have a long future, but until LCD can learn some very difficult new tricks, it'll survive. Diluting that purpose for half-baked progress to compete with tablets is the wrong direction for e-ink.

Original post by Dan Nosowitz and can be found here: http://bit.ly/cs8u3v

Holy Cow! Google and Verizon to Launch Chrome OS Tablet

Things are going to look very interesting in the last quarter this year and the first quarter of 2011 when the Google Chrome OS Tablet is released. The mind boggles as to what will happen in the computing war to follow.

It comes as no surprise to most that Google is building a tablet PC. Sources confirm that the tablet is being built by HTC – no surprise there – which also built the Nexus One for Google. And before you ask, Google and HTC plan to offer their tablet on Verizon; recent events on the issue of Net neutrality spring to mind.

The launch date is Black Friday 2010, i.e. November 26th to all you non-US residents. It is also the busiest shopping day of the year. Quite interesting considering that only God knows what type of deals will be on offer to all interested in the products.

Some analysts are speculating that Google might give the tablet away for free with the condition that the customer signs some form of deal with Verizon data contract. This I might add is pure speculation. One thing is for sure though; there will be increasing doubts as to whether Apple will open up the iPad and iPhone to Verizon customers.

You might be wondering what type of hardware the Google tablet will be packing. Initial guess is that it will come based on the Nvidia Tegra 2 platform coming with a 1280x720 multi-touch display, 2GB Ram, 32GB SSD, WiFi/Bluetooth/3G connectivity, GPS, WebCam, and an expandable storage via a card reader.

I for one think it will be nothing short of fantastic, and knowing Google, they will not want to disappoint their legion of fans. You can bet on one thing, the war between Google and Apple has only just begun.

Image from DownloadSquad and can be found here: http://bit.ly/9mLgnq

A digital trend is shaking up comic book culture

Technology, which has already upended the music, television and movie businesses, is now gripping the comic book world. Publishers are unleashing a torrent of digital comic books across smart phones, tablet devices, game consoles and digital book readers, portending major changes in how comics are made and marketed.

These new comics - many of which were showcased last week at Comic-Con International in San Diego - in some cases come with choreographed presentations that zoom or pan across panels, full-color animated characters, audio from professional voice actors, heart-thumping soundtracks and even the ability for readers to leave comments on the pages.

With change come its twin companions: angst and exhilaration.

Traditionalists argue that "experiments" with animation and sound effects threaten to undermine the aesthetic foundation of comics and wipe out comic book stores already struggling to stay afloat - in other words, to do what the iPod and iTunes did to record shops.

Enthusiasts dismiss such fears as nonsense. Digital distribution is not only bringing a desperately needed infusion of young comic readers but also giving birth to a renaissance of innovation in a medium that some say badly needs updating.

"Digital distribution is our new newsstand," said Chip Mosher, the marketing director at Boom Studios, which is converting its entire library of several hundred comic titles for online reading. "It's a way to get our product in front of a mass audience."

The arguments aren't new, as digital comics have been around for more than a decade. But the stakes are becoming much higher as sales of digital comics are poised to take off, with a proliferation of titles on mobile gadgets such as Google Inc.'s Android phones and Apple Inc.'s iPad tablets and iPhones.
"The industry is in a difficult spot," said Scott McCloud, author of "Reinventing Comics" and several other books on comics as a medium. "It has to rethink its entire business model while it's rethinking the art form."

Marvel Entertainment, which has been offering unlimited access to more than 8,000 digital comic books via PCs for $10 a month, released an iPad application in April through which readers can browse more than 500 titles. DC Comics came out its own iTunes app in June, starting with 200 titles and adding close to 50 titles a week.

Although digital sales are less than 5 percent of the roughly $1-billion U.S. market for comic books and Japanese manga, it's rapidly growing.
"Comic book sales have seen flat to relatively modest growth in recent years, but digital sales for us have so far doubled, year over year," said Ira Rubenstein, Marvel's executive vice president of global digital media.

Traditional comic stores view the growth of online comics with some apprehension.
Some store owners believe digital sales will cannibalize print sales, especially if the digital version is priced at $1.99 while the print comic is typically $3.99. What's more, the digital versions can be ordered and delivered within seconds.

Douglas Wolk, an avid collector and the author of "Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean," says computer clicks can never duplicate the personal relationship between a reader and the person working the comic shop counter.
"Comic book stores have a very close relationship with their customers," Wolk said. "But the old-school collectors are aging, and it may be that the print comic goes away eventually. There is an entire generation of readers who is not interested in physical copies."

Rubenstein said Marvel's digital sales largely come from lapsed comic book fans and new readers who may eventually venture into collecting print editions. A survey of more than 2,000 comic book readers conducted this spring by ComiXology, a New York-based startup that has its own app with 2,200 comics from about two dozen publishers, found that 1 in 5 who bought a digital comic book had never bought a comic before, according to the company's chief executive, David Steinberger.

At least for now, stores can still count on comic book collectors who eagerly wait for new shipments to arrive every Wednesday.
One of those is Jeffrey Reddick, a lifelong comic book reader who took a break last week from his job as a screenwriter to hit Meltdown Comics in Hollywood.
"I'm old school. I like my comics printed," the 41-year-old said as he prepared to pay for nine comic books, adding them to a prodigious collection that fills a walk-in closet in his Hollywood home. "Digital comics are good, but there's not the magic of the book that makes me feel like that geeky kid."
They might not have dampened Reddick's enthusiasm, but digital comics also haven't led a tidal wave of new buyers into Meltdown Comics, said store manager Chris Rosa. "The jury is still out on that one," Rosa said.

Part of the challenge is that some forms of digital comics, such as motion comics where characters are animated and voiced by actors, differ greatly from printed books.
Motion comics account for only a fraction of the digital comic market and are expensive to produce. Though early versions have been given a thumbs-down by many critics, the motion comics sector continuing to grow.

"There's no question that in the next few years, we will see more motion comics," said Sharad Devarajan, chief executive of Liquid Comics in New York. "But consumer demand for them is predicated on quality. The first few motion comics, quite candidly, did not offer a good experience."
Jim Lee, co-publisher of DC Comics and a well-regarded artist and writer, says the move to digital is altering the creative process.

"As readers become more familiar with reading digital comics, it will affect the way we think about producing the comics," Lee said. "We start to think about constructing our pages differently. Some publishers have asked artists to create layouts specifically for the iPad, for instance. We also think about the length of our stories because people with smart phones have shorter bits of time to consume media. ... I see a lot of experimentation with the art form."

"Every time we undergo a change in technology, people say we're losing something," said Joe Quesada, Marvel's editor in chief. "I see it as gaining something .... Comic creators will learn how to tell their stories in new ways."

Blog piece written by ALEX PHAM AND JOHN HORN. It can be found here: http://bit.ly/9qfl6W
Comic book picture from I Antique Online and can be found here: http://bit.ly/crhNOQ

Mass Romance Novel Publisher Going All In On E-Books

With a dramatic fall in sales of its range of books, one publisher has decided to take the eBooks route. Here is the story in full:

E-books are becoming more popular by the minute thanks to devices like the Kindle, Nook, and iPad, but major dead tree publishers have been hesitant to go all in—until now. Dorchester Publishing, which describes itself as the “oldest independent mass market publisher in America,” has decided to ditch its mass printing business to go digital- and print-on-demand only.

Unsurprisingly, Dorchester had a little nudge in that direction: the publisher said that sales of its books had declined a whopping 25 percent in just the last year, while its e-book sales are expected to double in 2011. The company specializes in romance, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels and sells directly to major retailers like Wal-Mart.

“It wasn’t a long, drawn out decision, because we’ve been putting in the effort but not getting the results,” Dorchester CEO John Prebich told the Wall Street Journal.

Amazon recently said that Kindle book sales had surpassed the company’s sales of hardcover books in the last three months—a trend that many expect to continue now that the Kindle is even cheaper than before. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos even made the bold prediction that Kindle book sales might eclipse paperbacks within the next year.

Though some consider that prediction to be just short of delusion, it’s clear that e-books are (at least) on a positive trajectory. Whether that trajectory will enough to overcome the apparent drop in traditional media sales for Dorchester is another story, but the company says it expects to make big savings from cutting out printed books.

It’s unclear, however, whether that expectation includes some of its partners walking away: “It’s been a good run, but if they aren’t publishing mass-market paperbacks, we’ll have to decide what to do,” said Charles Ardai, owner of Hard Case Crime, which distributes its books through Dorchester.

This story was from Wired Magazine and written by Jacqui Cheng and can be found here: http://bit.ly/bdMXXG

Barnes & Noble Unveils Kindle-Killing, Dual-Screen ‘Nook’ E-Reader (Updated)

If you just ordered a Kindle, stop reading now or you’re in for a giant dose of buyer’s remorse. Barnes and Noble unveiled a new e-book reader called ‘Nook’, and it is hot, both inside and out. 

Nook looks a lot like Amazon’s white plastic e-book reader, only instead of the chiclet-keyboard there is a color multitouch screen, to be used as a keyboard or to browse books, cover-flow style. The machine runs Google’s Android OS and it will have wireless capability from AT&T.

The $260 Nook–same price as the Kindle 2–is expected to be on sale at the end of November.

The Nook has the regular black-and-white E Ink display and a 3.5-inch color touchscreen. The latter allows users to browse books. The Nook also comes with built-in WiFi, 2GB of internal storage, MP3 player and supports open formats such as EPUB. Nook users have features such as bookmarks, and the ability to share books with friends for up to a fortnight through other e-readers, smartphones or computers.

Barnes and Noble has said Nook customers will have access to its online bookstore that includes books, newspapers and magazines. The Nook itself can hold up to 1,500 e-books.

Gizmodo, first showed leaked images of the Nook last week. The blog said that B&N will be discounting titles heavily in their electronic format, which is as is should be (no paper, printing or shipping costs). The Nook will also be able to get books from the Google Books Project.

Earlier Tuesday, Wall Street Journal, had a peek at an at ad set to run in The New York Times this coming Sunday. The ad features the line “Lend eBooks to friends,” and this has the potential to destroy the Kindle model. One of the biggest problems with e-books is that you can’t lend or re-sell them. If B&N is selling e-books cheaper than the paper versions, then the resale issue is moot. And lending, even if your friends need a Nook, too, takes away the other big advantage of paper.

In fact, this loaning function could be the viral feature that makes the device spread. Who would buy a walled-garden machine like the Kindle when the Nook has the same titles, cheaper, and you can borrow? The Nook is already starting to look like the real internet to the Kindle’s AOL.

Original blog by Charlie Sorrel and can be found here: http://bit.ly/30kb4g

Upstart E-readers Fade to Black as Tablets Gain Momentum

E-readers are far from dead but many are certainly gasping for breath. A shake-out in the e-reader market has put some smaller companies out of business, leaving the playing field clear for giants like Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony.

The list of e-reader makers running into trouble has grown in the past few weeks:

• Audiovox has canceled plans to introduce the RCA Lexi e-reader that it demonstrated at the Consumer Electronics Show this year.
• Last month, e-reader maker iRex filed for bankruptcy, citing disappointing sales of its product in the United States.
• Plastic Logic, which also debuted its large screen reader at CES in January, has canceled all pre-orders for its device and scrapped plans to ship the product.
• Cool-er, one of the earliest startups to launch a Sony look-alike e-reader, has listed all its products as “out of the stock” in the United States with no mention of when new devices will be available.

“Companies that had neither brand nor distribution have failed,” says Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst for Forrester Research.

Price cuts by Amazon and Barnes & Noble, coupled with the shift in consumer interest toward more multi-purpose tablets, have also taken their toll on e-readers.

“You are seeing the same kind of proliferation and excitement in tablets now that you saw two years ago for e-readers,” says Epps.

After Amazon introduced the Kindle in 2007, e-readers became one of the hottest consumer products. The category attracted large companies such as Samsung and Barnes & Noble, even as lesser-known players such as Plastic Logic, Aluratek and iRiver jumped in.

Mostly Kindle clones, many of these e-readers were near-identical in how they looked and the features they offered. Almost all sourced their black-and-white screen from a single company: E Ink.

Meanwhile, Apple launched its iPad this year. At $500, it’s pricier than most e-readers, but offers relatively long battery life, a color screen and iBooks, an iTunes-like store for digital books. It may not be as ideally suited to reading as a dedicated e-reader, but many iPad customers are finding that it works well enough as a book reader, in addition to its many other functions.

Apple’s move sparked a price war in the e-reader market. Amazon dropped the price of its Kindle 2 to $190 from $260. Barnes & Noble released a Wi-Fi-only version of the Nook for $150, while a Nook with Wi-Fi and 3G capability now costs $200.

The price war put a squeeze on smaller e-reader manufacturers.

“As a result of the recent price drops in the market, our primary focus has shifted to international opportunities,” Audiovox told the Digital Reader website.

All this doesn’t mean consumers have completely fallen out of love with e-readers, says Epps. Tablets will outpace e-readers in overall sales, she says, but the shift toward digital books is here to stay. Forrester estimates 6.6 million e-readers will be sold in the United States this year. Approximately 29.4 million e-readers may be sold in the United States by 2016, compared to 59 million tablets.

Earlier this week, Amazon said for the first time sales of e-books are outstripping hardcovers. In June, Amazon sold 180 e-books for every 100 hardcovers. In the first six months of the year, the company sold three times as many e-books as it did in the first half of 2009.

“In the e-reader market, price is coming way down and that’s the major consideration for purchase,” says Epps. “If a company can do cheaper and better devices than Amazon, Sony or Barnes & Noble, they still have a chance — but no one’s been able to do that yet.”

Originally by Priya Ganapati and can be found here: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/07/ereaders-consolidation/

$99 Color E-Reader and Social Platform to Challenge Amazon, B&N This Fall

Following recent price cuts on Amazon’s Kindle 2 and Barnes & Noble’s Nook, a new manufacturer is set to stir up even more competition in the e-reader pricing wars with the debut of a $99 color device this fall.

The device, which weighs in at .42 lbs and features a 5-inch, 800×480-pixel, color LCD display, 2GB of storage, 64MB of RAM, 2G of Flash Memory and up to four hours of battery life, is just one in a line of devices Copia, a subsidiary of DMC Worldwide, plans to introduce.

Other devices include a 7-inch color e-reader for $129.99, two 6-inch black-and-white e-readers that closely resemble the Kindle 2 for $149.99 without Wi-Fi and $159.99 with Wi-Fi, and a $299.99 10.1-inch Wi-Fi-enabled color tablet.

“We want to make e-reading more accessible to a mass audience,” said Tony Antolino, senior VP of DMC Worldwide and Copia. “Not everyone can afford all of the higher end devices.”

 CAN COPIA REALLY TAKE ON AMAZON?

The question is whether Copia can compete with the established players in the space, several of whom have already captured large shares of the e-book market, established partnerships with major authors and literary agencies, and launched devices that have become household names.

If anyone can do it, I believe Copia can. It’s not just another big brand arriving late to the market; rather, it’s creating a new reading, discussion and shopping experience that’s radically different than what’s being offered by current e-book retailers.

While I don’t think its line of e-ink readers stand a chance against the cheaper, better Kindle 3, the social platform could be a major success. Readers who like to share and discuss what they are reading will discover an integrated experience that will lead them to purchase books from Copia’s store over one of its competitors — if Copia can offer enough incentives to get them to explore the platform in the first place.

What do you think of Copia’s forthcoming line of devices and social reading platform? Can a small manufacturer compete against the likes of Amazon, Apple and Barnes & Noble?

Original story by Lauren Indvik. The full story can be read here: http://mashable.com/2010/08/03/copia/

Soaring e-book sales speak volumes

HONG KONG — After years of lurking in the literary wilderness, the e-book market has exploded with online retailer Amazon.com's digital volumes recently overtaking sales of their hardcover counterparts.

The increase in sales has come as Amazon slashes the price on its Kindle device amid heavy competition from Apple's multi-purpose iPad and e-readers from Sony and bookstore giant Barnes & Noble.

Underscoring the growth, Hong Kong's massive book fair, an annual event attended by almost one million people, wrapped up last week with visitors exposed to a brand-new section: digital reading.

Beijing-based Hanvon Technology unveiled a black-and-white tablet reader that comes with 5,000 Chinese and English book titles pre-installed for about 3,400 Hong Kong dollars (440 US).

Readers can download thousands more titles for as little as 20 Hong Kong dollars each on the device, which also lets users enlarge the typeface, take notes and look up words in the dictionary.

"One (print) book might cost you 100 Hong Kong dollars or more, and then you have to find a place to store it," Hanvon employee Bo Bo Wong told AFP. "With this, you can have thousands and thousands of books in one place," she said.

Mainland companies such as Hanvon, Acuce and Tianjin are taking on the likes of Apple and Amazon by pushing content tailor-made for the vast and rapidly growing Chinese digital market.

The total value of digital publications across all platforms overtook that of traditional print publications in mainland China for the first time last year, the General Administration of Press and Publication said last week.

According to the South China Morning Post, a recent survey by the Chinese Institute of Publishing Science found that nearly a quarter of the 20,000-plus people it surveyed now do most of their reading digitally.

The newspaper quoted Chen Fuming, a manager of a major bookstore chain in Guangzhou across the border from Hong Kong, as saying Chinese book shops were in crisis.

"Even I myself now prefer to read fiction with my mobile phone," Chen said. "It's cheap and convenient."

New Zealand's Kiwa International, another company showing off its wares at the Hong Kong book fair, is using Apple's iPad as a platform for its child-targeted software.

The Auckland firm's technology lets children interact with books downloaded onto the iPad by colouring in story characters and swiping words that are then repeated aloud -- in nine languages.

"They can totally personalise the book," Kiwa's creative director Derek Judge told AFP. "And we provide a service to (traditional) publishers who want to enter into the digital arena."

Amazon temporarily sold out of its 189-dollar Kindle e-reader last week and on Thursday unveiled a new 139-dollar model that connects online by WiFi instead of via 3G networks.

"Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books -- astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months," Amazon boss Jeff Bezos said last month.

US bookstore chain Borders has also launched an electronic book store to tap into the market, which has seen late Swedish crime writer Stieg Larsson become the first novelist to sell more than one million e-books on Amazon.com.

But while British author and actor Stephen Fry is an avowed technophile, he doesn't think printed books should be written off quite yet.

"Printed books certainly will continue to exist," he said at the Hong Kong fair.

"I love them and will continue to collect them... (with) some books I just want to turn the pages myself."

Originally from Google News - http://tinyurl.com/32ta2tv