[Fenris Technique]

For all the grandiloquent praise heaped upon the sanctity of cardboard bound paper, one should not lose sight of the larger picture. Literacy is required for a readership to exist. A readership must exist for authors to thrive. eReaders easily promote literacy in places where shipping boat loads of books is neither feasible nor profitable.

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. . . The more books one reads the more is the literacy rate, the more person’s knowledge in specific area increases. As reported in UN Human Development Report (2007-2008) literacy rate differs according to countries. In Africa in general it is less than 70% as shown on Graph. 3. Reasons of this phenomenon can be many, but most importantly it is economic environment and logistics. Most of the modern fiction and educational books nowadays are produced in English, French or German in US or Europe. The cost per book is high, in addition to shipping fees the cost per each book increases and deriving from economic situation of some particular countries it is hard to purchase expensive books. Thusly, invention of e-reader will make it easier to residents of these countries to purchase reading materials, since it is cost efficient; - price of one e-reader is lower than combination of each textbook price. Especially it is true for classic fiction literature, which is mostly free online and can be downloaded easily. As reported by Bain & Company’s Survey (Graph. 1) there is a significant difference in US between the number of books read by people before and after acquiring e-reader, 52% of respondents claim that they read more books than they had before. In all countries surveyed (Korea, US, France, UK, Germany, Japan) this number is 42%. http://www.academia.edu/4747976/The_...z_Baratashvili

eReaders open up a vast wealth of literature to the third world and encourage *more* reading among owners worldwide. Clearly, on this particular forum, I'm in the minority. I'm the guy in the hipster vinyl shop singing the praises of MP3's to the flannel shirts. I get it. But if you look at the impact eReaders have across the globe it's hard to argue that they've been anything but a net gain for writers and readers alike.