Don’t expect K-12 people to be e-book gurus. Simplify, simplify, simplify–whether you’re a vendor or just an enthusiast trying to win a convert.
TeleRead has been saying that for years and advocating a standard consumer-level format to make life easier for technophobes. Schools are a crucial market since they can help ingrain the e-book habit at an early age. But so far the industry has flunked Marketing 101 by insisting on a tangle of different formats and onerous copyright-related controls.
Now, from WhatIsNew.com, comes a striking example of the need for simplicity. Read what happened when a WIN writer ran across a dedicated but tech-bewildered teacher in a used bookstore in Modesto, California, and tried to convert her to e-books.
She spent more time shuffling through her lists than she did looking at the books on the shelves. She had been there a while and had chosen only one book.
I couldn’t stay quiet — she looked miserable. I had to talk to this woman. The conversation went like this:
I asked, “Do you have a computer? Have you tried to find them in eBook format? ”
“Uh
