eBook Suggestion of the Month: The Battle of $9.99

Looking for an educational, fascinating read on how the E-Book industry has revolutionized our reading an purchasing habits?  We suggest The Battle of $9.99:  How Apple, Amazon, and the Big Six Publishers Changed the E-Book Business Overnight by Andrew Richard Albanese. 

Steve Jobs Disappoints Me

I had assumed that Apple was just holding back from entering the e-book market. Its competitor Sony, after all, has been taking the cautious road by marketing its Reader device in a grass-roots campaign that seems to be aimed at librarians and academics. Then along comes Amazon with Kindle, which perhaps rightly emphasizes convenience and instant gratification via wireless distribution.

And of course I'm pleased that My Inflatable Friend is available not only in softcover, but also in Kindle e-format.

But if Steve Jobs is to be believed, he just doesn't want to play the game. At all. There will be no iPod for books (unless you credit the little-publicized ability of the iPhone to display PDFs). Here's what he said recently in the NY Times.

Perhaps he should pop over to Goodreads, where librarians and other book junkies flock to await the End of Print As We Know It!