If you've kept your eyes open you would have seen many new eBook projects in the news recently. Is there really a huge demand for a book in a non-paper format? Or is this just a tech push with no consumer pull? Personally I am all for eBooks when they save trees, energy, waste and transportation costs. But I also want to hold the paper book in my hand once in a while. If all books were first issued as eBooks, but be available for on-demand individual printouts, that would satisfy me.

So let's see what has been happening recently:


- Google opens their own bookstore called Google Editions, which uses a regular web browser as a distribution mechanism. They are also offering content DRM-free.

- Barnes&Nobles are launching their own eReader device, for electronic distribution of their own publishing.

- The European Union is launching a digital library with 110,000 publications freely available in pdf format

- ...and while the competition is getting tough, Amazon is learning just how tricky it is to have a direct, open channel to consumers' books. Lawsuits for deleting content from people's Kindles are going for USD 150,000.


What we need next, is a good repository of audiobooks for mobile phones. As book publishers are learning digital sharing with eBooks, please focus on audiobooks next. Why all the gigabytes of memory in billions of phones are being filled with music, and not with books? Something must be done.