The New York Times has a news feature suggesting that eBook devices are leading readers to up the number of books they consume. Amazon says that people with Kindles now buy 3.1 times as many books as they did before owning the device, while Sony says that its Reader users download about eight books a month. Of course, someone had to say that people aren't likely to read more in the modern age of movies and the Internet...but you'd think it wouldn't be a publisher...
“Given the fact that people now have the Internet, almost 24-hour football entertainment in the fall, tennis matches from around the world, TV shows out the wazoo, and movies, do you really believe that people are going to be reading more because they can get it on a screen?” said John Sargent, chief executive of Macmillan, owner of imprints like Farrar, Straus and Giroux and St. Martin’s Press. “I don’t see the scenario.”
Way to sell the book industry John.