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The recent surge in the popularity of both e-books and e-book readers has been heavily influenced by Amazon. Amazon’s Kindle reader first hit the market during November of 2006 and further updates followed with the release of the Kindle 2.0 in February of 2009 and the launch of the third generation Kindle in August 2010. The large display Kindle DX was released in the summer of 2009 and also had an upgrade in August 2010.

A great many industry analysts suggested that, notwithstanding the influential role of Amazon in the development of the e-book reader market, the release of the Apple iPad would signal the demise of the Kindle reader. However, following the release of the latest third generation Kindle, accompanied by a price cut, Amazon is, once again, out of stock of Kindles. It looks as if demand remains high for what is now Amazon’s best selling product.

E-books have been readily accepted by many readers. Others seem to love physical books as much as they love reading. However, for the majority of people the ability to carry large quantities of reading material around with them, coupled with the ease of operation offered by e-book readers, has proven to be a winning combination. Recent cuts in e-book reader prices, prompted by the release of the iPad, have made e-book readers a much more attractive option for many readers.

Amazon recently advised that they are now selling more Kindle books than traditional hardback editions. The lower sales price of e-books – which use no paper or ink and have no delivery fees to speak of – certainly helps. It can’t be very much longer before e-books begin to sell more than paperbacks.

As well as the price, the ease with which e-books can be bought is another influencing factor. Readers can download a book to their Kindle in under a minute, whatever the time of day, just as long as they can connect to the Amazon Kindle store.

One potential area of concern for many prospective customers was a reluctance to be “tied” to one particular brand of e-reader. This issue has been very effectively addressed by Amazon who have released a large number of free “apps” to allow Kindle books to be read on a wide range of different devices. At the moment, Kindle books can be read on the PC, the Mac, the iPhone, the iPad, the Blackberry smart phone and any device which runs the Android operating system. It’s actually a clever strategy by Amazon. Not only does it address customer’s concerns about being tied to one particular brand of hardware but every new app acts as a separate retail outlet for Amazon’s massive selection of Kindle books. At the moment, around about 20% of all Kindle book sales are estimated to be aimed at non-Kindle hardware.

It looks as if e-books are here for the long term and that they will gradually begin to account for a higher and higher proportion of book sales. It also looks as if Amazon are going to be very influential in the world of digital publishing for the foreseeable future.