Friday, September 30, 2011

eBooks for middle graders: are they really reading them?

I know, three posts in a week, what's up? Apparently I have an opinion this week.

I was just reading a funny cartoon over at Smack Dab in the Middle about the differences and similarities between ebooks and regular books, and then...

I was over at Anita Miller's blog where her book is in the top 100 for kid mystery eBooks (congrats by the way), and then ...

I just blogged about ebooks over at The Writing Bug because Kindles can now check out ebooks from the library (super sweet) and the near future may include a Netflix-type system for getting ebooks (which means will anyone ever buy a new ebook?), and then ...

My neighbor, who just recently got a reader, tells me about all the pirated ebooks she's downloaded and I believe she will never buy a book again, so then...

I have all these thoughts and it's a swirl of ebook info and what I really wonder is:

Are middle graders even reading ebooks? (Because if they aren't, then I don't care about ebooks.)

The children's Kindle list is dominated by YA and bestselling MG by Riordan. So that just seems like adults who don't want to be caught reading YA or MG or just want it cheap on a reader and not actually for their kids.

What do you think? Are kids reading ebooks?

My husband has an iPad and my kids just play games...they're pretty good at Angry Birds. No one reads on it. But if I downloaded a book and gave it to Lore, she would probably read it.

So does that mean Early Adopter Parents are actually buying ebooks for their kids? And when they upgrade their readers, will they give their old readers to their MGers?

Does that mean in five years (according growth trends), it will be harder to sell your book because your ebook will be competing with loads of self-published? Or do you even need a publisher and jump in the self-published fray?

I know, too many thoughts. If you have an opinion on the matter, I would love to hear it.


3 comments:

  1. I teach 7th graders and the number of students asking if they can bring their ereader in to use at school has increased each year. Yes they are using them!

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  2. My daughter wants one! So she's on board.

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  3. My daughter has started several books on both the Kindle and the iPad, but she never finishes them. My son finally read one book on the iPad, but it was an ARC so he was thrilled to read it before his pre-ordered hard cover version arrived at the book store. And yes, once he had the actual book, he read it again. Both my kids prefer turning pages in a real book, not a virtual one.

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