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By David Rothman

“Do you read e-books on your mobile device?” PalmAddicts asked readers. Here are the results:

  • No—-never. I prefer reading the traditional way (45 percent)
  • Yes—often (41 percent)
  • Other—I tend not to read books (0 percent).
  • No, but I read e-books on a nonPDA device (0 percent).

I’d have worded the questions differently, but the poll is still worth paying attention to—since 632 people participated. Notice? Dedicated machines like the Sony Reader and the eBookwise devices don’t even show up as tiny blips on PA’s radar. This may well change, of course, as e-book-specific technology improves.

Another interesting point is that the poll didn’t even bother to mention desktops specifically. Some people must read books off desktops. Even so, and even allowing for the PDA-centric orientation of PalmAddicts here and in regard to other questions, I wonder if this might be yet one explanation of why PDF is the most popular format at Manybooks.net. Could it be, as has been speculated before, that many folks are just making PDF printouts rather than reading off their screens? Remember, PDF is essentially a pretty PDA-hostile format but good for printing.

Still another point is that 42 percent is hardly a complete disgrace but is far less than the percentage of PDA owners who should be reading e-books. This suggests that the e-book industry needs, through cross-promo and otherwise, to market more aggressively to PDA owners. New PDAs should come with e-reading programs and sample books.

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