Wednesday, October 27, 2010

The Nook goes color

It's official. Barnes & Noble has actually beaten Amazon on something in the e-reading department. The Nook is now available with a color screen. It's being called the nookcolor and currently prices for $249.

What does this mean for digital publishing writers? Honestly, I'm not sure. But I'm guessing not much, at least not in the short run.

Color will eventually (maybe in the next 6 months) become a mainstay for digital readers, and that probably means a whole lot more people will be buying e-readers, at least once the price goes down some.

Also, smart move by B&N to release the new colornook before Christmas. I'm almost surprised they didn't wait until right before Thanksgiving, but maybe they're nervous. Maybe Amazon is working on a similar new Kindle product. I honestly don't know.

Color e-reading devices does open up more opportunities for comic artists and the like, and for authors writing books that utilize lots of artwork. For your average genre writer, it basically just means your covers will be in color.

Or is that really all it means? What about interior art? What about color maps for fantasy novels? This could potentially hold more relevance to writers, but I think that's still a ways off.

One thing's for sure: The potential for e-books and e-readers is still just being tapped. In 10 years, God only knows what the market will look like. Maybe five years. Or two.

4 comments:

Clark Goble said...

I love my kindle way more than anticipated and haven't really missed the lack of color. Would be cool though I suppose.

Ty said...

Hey Clark! Thanks for stopping by. I was just skimming through Habbakuk and thinking you.

Unknown said...

One of my pet ambitions is to have books/short stories with really good interior art that is also integrated into the story. The more obvious challenge is I'm not an Artist, but having color ebook readers widely available wouldn't hurt.

Charles Gramlich said...

I have a nook app on my pc so I got sent this information. It's tempting.