By Mark Tennis

When the first PA devices and smartphones began to emerge onto the market developers sought a way to transfer books onto these pieces of tech. Although the first attempts weren’t very successful for many reasons, we now live in an age in which eReaders are ubiquitous and many think they will put books out of print.

These eReaders are so prevalent that they aren’t just used for reading any longer. Now it’s possible to watch movies, play games and even get online in PayPal casinos, like those listed on www.paypal-casinos.co, all from your Kindle or Nook.

It’s great for publishers, and self-published authors, as it’s now possible to get books out there at a fraction of a cost. This makes the profit margins larger and those who purchase eBooks can even get better deals on them because of this.

Although this market is now heaving with those selling and buying, it’s not the future of books – as some would have you believe. Technology is always getting bigger and better, so the end is not yet nigh for the printed word. 30% of books sold now are eBooks but only 6% of readers only buy eBooks, the rest purchase a mixture or only physical books. This means that the market is still very much there for those who wish to by traditional books.

No one can accurately track the path that technology is going to take, although many have tried. As far as eBooks are concerned it’s an unclear path as there are many aspects of the industry that offer areas for improvement. These could come in the form of improvements to cloud services, new ways to store books or even eReaders that have flexible screens. This technology could really take readers anywhere but which ones will be popular will be decided by the reader.

Those who do believe that the printed book is going out of style often hark back to the fate of the CD. As MP3 files came along these outdated modes of listening to music were left out of the loop and are now rarely seen. There are a few key differences that this comparison doesn’t take into account however, and one of these is that the digital version was often an improvement on the physical copy. The target markets of the products are vastly different too, while MP3 players were embraced by younger aficionados, eReaders are more popular among older readers.

Whatever is next for the eReader the improvements will be fascinating to watch. Although they may come on a par with the printed word they won’t be able to replace books until they offer something better. The time may come where they do but what improvement will be responsible for that remains to be seen.