Me, I like a good paperback novel - I suspect most people still prefer them. That said, when I talk to my 18 year-old son, he thinks anything that can be downloaded onto his Blackberry is "sweet", so there's the demographic shift in my own house. What strikes me as interesting is while electronic publishing in North America is a drop in the bucket in terms of overall sales (versus print), 2008 was a banner year for sales nonetheless. Will it become mainstream? Beats me - I know that e-books by and large aren't considered to be a legitimate publishing credit and there is a stigma associated with it. Still, when one looks at the fantastic success of e-book publishers like Samhain, or Drollerie Press, there's a case to be made that a strong market exists for well written content. My own publisher, Lyrical Press, is a year old and does a fantastic job of getting it's name out there - is it a legitimate publishing credit? Well perhaps not yet, but someone out there is buying the product and I suspect it won't be long before the major traditional publishing houses give e-books a second look.
