One of the biggest complaints that I hear from literary figures is that people are not reading. E.g. Philip Roth saying that the number of serious readers in Am

One of the biggest complaints that I hear from literary figures is that people are not reading. E.g. Philip Roth saying that the number of serious readers in America is going to drop to almost zero. So I would imagine that readers being able to find whatever book they want wherever they are located and buy it instantly would remove some of the barriers to reading. I would also imagine that having cheaper books would encourage people to buy more. And I think that all of the other new ways of getting books to people (Audible for example) are also vehicles to get people reading. I also think that ebooks open up a lot of possibilities for experimentation. For instance, in the past it may not have made a lot of financial sense to write a 60 page novella - you couldn't really put it on a shelf in a bookstore by itself, it would have to be packaged with other work. But with an ebook there's no reason you can't write a 60 page novella and charge $3 for it. I think a good analogy is print journalism and commentary vs web journalism and commentary. There's a lot more crap on the web, and a lot of the traditional institutions are hurting, but there are also so many more opportunities for new voices and for innovation.