This means there has to be a way to highlight text.

“women who read books live outside the US – in all sorts of different countries!!!!!!”

So to get upset that you can’t resell an ebook is just a weird argument.

Used bookstores will still exist. Print is not going away. You can still get your fix.

1) The high (anything above $100, IMHO) upfront cost of the (empty!)
reader, and the assumption that if you don’t want to buy a dedicated reader
you can just use your iPhone/PDA/laptop/other portable electronic device,
when I do not possess/have any use for any of those (also high-priced)
gadgets, either (well, I’d like a laptop someday, but that’s another
argument).
2) DRM and incompatible formats and their associated hassle. Proprietary
readers, like the Kindle.
3) The often decades-long gap between out-of-print and out-of-copyright,
where the content would be in limbo and unavailable for purchase if you
can’t buy used books, which is related to
4) The whole used bookstore and resale issue, which must be preserved
*somehow,* and to the
5) There’s always plenty of free stuff at Project Gutenberg and other like sources gambit. I am grateful for Project Gutenberg, don’t get me wrong, but the point is, it’s beside the point from my point of view. I can get *those* books from the library, and don’t particularly want them as keepers.

If I buy something, I want the right to sell it to someone else if I don’t
like it or when I’m done with it. You’ll pry my beloved used book stores
out of my cold dead hands.

We all have our differing tolerances for new media. I need mine to be
simple (on the level of a point-and-shoot digital camera with no formatting issues), inexpensive, and not tell me what I can or cannot do with my purchases. If we accept less than what we want, we’ll never get it corrected.

I just wish there was some way I could vote with my dollars, instead of just withholding them and hoping someone gets the point.

On the plus side, I’ve been seeing e-harlequin banner ads all over the internet.

31% is hardly a majority. I like the photo. I used to read a lot alone on the beach (when I was still living at the cost, now you have to replace the beach for a park). How do you know your personal opinion is representative for ‘all women’?

See the discussion of making our voices heard about what we want in these products over at SBTB:

I said dog, but close enough.

I think advertisers need to appeal to many different groups, but the default to appealing to women shouldn’t be just to hit the soccer moms. Frankly, it makes sense to appeal to women without kids, because play money/disposable income might be more plentiful and more likely to go to adult toys. I mean like readers, not like…adult toy adult toys. :)

That said, I don’t find the woman on the beach pictured above effective either. Sitting on a beach like that would be uncomfortable within 5 minutes. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt and we won’t even talk about the sand that would find its way into the reader, since she doesn’t have it in a ziploc bag.

I’m with the folks who think that the advertising is just not there at all. Or if it is, it’s not reaching the masses.

Everybody I’ve shown my reader to so far was surprised by the incredible crispness of the type (so was I once I had it outside the neon lights of a Target store), but few really knew about e-readers in general.

On the Bujold list during a long involved discussion on e-books and e-readers, a list member posted a comparison in different sizes/font types between HC and paperbacks and the Sony and even I was surprised how much more readable the Sony was.

I still think the price point is about double what it should be on the 505. You can buy a LOT of paperbacks for 300 bucks.

I also believe that the carbon foot print argument is not taking into account how often folks will change their readers. See Sarah buying/getting the new Kindle 2 and a 505 and already owning the Kindle 1. Jane having an i-phone and a 700. Angela James having 5? different e-reading devices, etc.

That’s a lot of mercury that’s laying around waiting to pollute the environment eventually. I’m not one to buy a new computer every year, even so, our household currently has 3 desktop and 3 laptop computers, 4-5 printers, 3 TVs, 2 DVD players, several stereo systems and assorted other electronics. And that’s just for 2 people, who only buy new every 3-5 years and are not into the forefront of technogeekery. I sincerely doubt that e-readers have less of a carbon foot print than paper books, if you take into account the usual suspects who are (early) adopters of this technology. If you then include the lifetime use of electricity for charging and lights… I seriously doubt we are coming out ahead for the environment. I may be wrong, but at this time any ad targeting e-readers as green would make me think they are lying to the consumers.

If you want a print book because you want to put it on the shelf and admire it, then clearly ebooks won’t work. But that preference is about the book as an object, and it is separate from the cognitive and emotional benefits of reading the words in the book. As someone who owns thousands of books, I get the print book fetish, believe me. But it’s a separate issue.

I am also surprised by the lack of advertising, not just to women, but also in print formats more generally. Especially magazines. Thanks to Calibre I now read the Economist, the Atlantic, and a couple of other magazines and newspapers on my Reader. So if I don’t have time for a book chapter, I can skim some headlines.

When I buy an e-book, I get a .pdf or .lit or .zip file. It goes on my computer. Every so often, I burn the collection to a CD for safekeeping.

As long as the Adobe reader works, the e-book is mine. No, I can’t sell it for a quarter on a yard-sale. But when it goes out of circulation, I can e-mail a copy to someone who desperately wants to read it. (I only do this with my own stories that are out of print)

Perhaps it’s because the sellers I read don’t use DRM. I’ve never bought a Kindle format book or from the Sony store. I tend to spend $6 or less per book.

The biggest stumbling block on an e-book reader is price. Absolutely. I can get a whole computer for $300. If it were $100 or $150, more people would buy it.

Also, advertising isn’t getting out there. My mother had never seen one until I brought mine to the city. I had trouble getting it home. 8) One appearance on Oprah does not an ad campaign make, esp considering how many people don’t watch talk shows and aren’t even home or awake by day. Magazines like Redbook, Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, should be carrying articles and ads.

Now, if Sony were putting ads on shows watched by women (check the Nielsens) for this, it’d be more popular. I can see one now: she’s sitting in the minivan, a little tired and stressed looking, parked in front of a school. She takes out the reader, flips it on, goes to her bookmark and is instantly on the deck of a pirate ship, dressed like Elizabeth Swan, bellowing orders to handsome, shirtless men. Then the kids get in the car, bursting the daydream, but she smiles, looking much refreshed for her break.

Or one that highlights the storage capacity. We see the woman first in a regency gown, dancing. Then a Sony page flip effect. We see her in armor, hacking her way toward an ancient and evil-looking temple. Page-flip. We see her in an evening gown, drinking champagne with a handsome man on a balcony. Page flip. She’s staking a vampire. Page flip. She’s riding a horse wearing a six-shooter. Her name is called, with a hint of volume and impatience. We see her in the doctor’s office, tucking her reader back into her purse and smiling at the nurse. “For the days when you want to go everywhere. Sony e-reader.”

I’ve had my sony for almost a year. And whenever I have it in public, people ask me what it is. Nobody’s seen them. Nobody’s seen them advertised. Nobody in stores has head of them. In the city of Memphis, there are exactly TWO brick-and-mortar places to buy one.