Here’s just a snippet from an excellent article in The Huffington Post by bestselling author Jason Pinter who is the author of the Henry Parker novels.
Ebooks should look to expand the book buying market, not be used as an alternative for the print edition. Look at the ads for the iPod: they’re fun, they’re cool, they feature all sorts of (pastel-colored) people who are far funkier than anyone you or I know grooving to the licensed beat. Then consider the ads for the Kindle: the music is straight out of your local elevator. Hesitant readers aren’t going to rush out to spent $299 to listen to the reading equivalent of John Tesh.
Related: E-book biz too fixated on regular readers? If so, what to do about it?—earlier commentary on the Pinter post.
The advertising is an accurate representation of the style and design quality of the product. Only in the USA would something looking like the Kindle have a market.
That’s only because there are so many people in America with enough disposable income to
blowspend on such a device. Besides, the Kindle is not being sold on its beauty… it’s being sold on its ability to snag content from Amazon.com on-the-fly. Instant access to mounds of content: That’s Kindle’s value… for as long as they’re the only ones holding it… and why (a relatively small number of) Americans buy it.(BTW: If you check, you’ll see that Huffpo’s pulled the article because they put it up early by accident. Professionals… bah.)