At 67 I am officially a senior. A tech savvy senior, I have been writing code for 40 years and have been an IS administrator. I resisted the Kindle and e-books until recently however. About a year ago there was a book I wanted to read that was only available as an e-book so I put the Kindle app on my PC. Reading it on my PC was not easy but it was better than not reading it at all. When I moved a few months ago I had to move boxes of books accumulated over the years so when I got my tablet I downloaded the Kindle app and got a couple of books. The tablet was much better than the PC - it was possible to read in bed once again. It seemed to be an acceptable way to read a book and for books not yet out in paperback much cheaper and a lot lighter than a hardback. So this old fart made the leap and I purchased the Amazon Kindle Paper White. Much smaller and you can carry it around and read much like you would a paperback. As an aging hippie the fact that I can adjust the font size is also a plus. This 67 year old is sold - better late than never. I just purchased 3 New York Times best sellers for what I would have paid for 1 hardcover.
Over at the American Conservative Daniel McCarthy wonders if e-books have peaked. He sites an article by Nicholas Carr who observes a "flattening of e-book sales." It's not always clear if this is a decline of the sale of readers like Kindle or a decline of book sales. My thought is Amazon and others should target the new seniors, more tech savvy. Seniors read a lot, like to save money and the font thing should be a real selling point.
Originally posted at The Moderate Voice