And the beat goes on

Have you ever seen someone read a book on an iPhone or other smart phone? Of course. Not optimal, but happens. But let's don't count such new ereader devices because we have no good idea how many people actually use them for reading ebooks, in addition to the devices' primary role of phoning and emailing. Probably a small minority. (According to exclusive Simba data, about 63% of smartphone owners, 48% of iPad owners and 40% of non-iPad tablet owners do not use e-books. That means only about 37 percent of smart phone users read ebooks.) Let's just try to count people who have purchased ereaders with larger than 5" screens as book reading devices, and even those devices, as we know, could be used for some other function such as gaming or emailing. Does it help at all to keep track of the number of ereader devices sold? Yes, because it tells you whether the beat goes on, or not. But that's about it. That's how I interpret the news that Apple sold 20 million iPads in the first quarter of 2013, compared to 12 million iPads sold during the 2012 first quarter, according to Digital Book World. We have already reported that there are about 50 million ereader users out there, and counting.

Europe's on board

Looks like Europe will not be a barrier. As we look at the world and the adoption of ebooks globally, Europe has removed its obstructionist tendencies. Apple and other publishers -- including now Penguin -- have promised not to “restrict, limit or impede” e-book retailers’ discounts or their ability to “set, alter or reduce retail prices for e-books” for two years according to details of the proposed changes as published in the EU’s Official Journal. That is good news. Now we've got the U.S. confronting unrestricted pricing of ebooks, as well as Europe, South America, Korea, China and Japan.Once again the Tower of Babel rules, because although these countries will not control prices, that does not mean they will all embrace the same ereader devices or the same coding or the same languages.