E-books to the rescue?

Well, despite all the bad news we’re getting about publishing these days, the NY Times reported a bit of better news: Electronic reading devices are attracting more readers.

Of course, this good news comes from the makers (and marketers) of e-reading devices. Publishers are not nearly as optimistic. According to Amazon, “a reader who had previously bought eight books from Amazon would now purchase, on average, 24.8 books” on his or her Kindle. Those who use Sony Readers purchase an average of eight books a month, “far more than the approximately 6.7 books than the average American book buyer purchased for the entire year in 2008.”

And yesterday, Barnes & Noble introduced the Nook.

Yet rather than being heartened by this news during a poor sales season, publishers remain wary, the article notes. And of course, there’s the pirating issue — though the pirating story in this article seems no different than what people do with traditional books: passing them around to friends and family. (“Exploiting a loophole in Amazon’s system, [Shayna Englin] has linked her Kindle to the Amazon account of some nearby friends, allowing all of them to read books like “The Lost Symbol” at the same time — while paying for them only once.”)

Still, it’s nice to hear that people who did not previously read much are now reading quite a lot — after all, despite the hurdles ahead, publishing is still, in the end, all about the readers.