In U.K., Sony E-Reader Says Bring It On, Kindle

By Andrew Albanese -- Publishers Weekly, 4/21/2009 9:25:00 AM

Editor's note: Due to a faulty link yesterday, the jump to this story did not appear in Wednesday's Daily. 
 
Until now Sony has had the dedicated reading device market to itself in the U.K., where the Kindle has yet to be introduced. But Wesley Dearing, the product manager in the U.K. for the Sony Reader and part of the team who launched Reader in September 2008, knows the Kindle is coming, eventually, and even has a message: bring it on. “So far, we’ve had the market to ourselves, and that’s been okay,” Dearing told PW, “but competition will help raise awareness.”  

Of course, Sony’s presence at the London Book Fair is also raising awareness, as a sponsor of the Digital Zone and Theatre at the edge of exhibit floor. When they first took a look at the 23-seat Digital Zone and theatre, Dearing said he wasn’t sure what to think. “I thought we might have trouble filling all the seats,” he said. To put it mildly, that hasn’t been a problem. The Digital Zone and its accompanying lounge have been mobbed for many of its presentations.

As for the growing dedicated digital reader market, the Sony Reader launch in the U.K. has been “very successful,” Dearing says, although Sony declines to say how many of the units it has sold. One sign of its potential success, even if that success hasn’t translated into big sales yet, is the steady stream of traffic into the Sony Reader lounge. Dearing said that the Sony team has had an “excellent” experience at the London Book Fair, both introducing the Reader to people who have yet to experience one, and talking with publishers, especially smaller independent publishers, about how to sell their content via the Sony Reader and getting their books into digital formats.

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