Here's one reason you may want to take the hardcover of David Sedaris' new book to the beach this summer instead of the digital version for Amazon's Kindle: Sand between the pages won't ruin a good story.
About six months after its introduction, the Kindle electronic reading device is entering its first beach season amid increasing discussion that the gadget may have a future. Skepticism about whether people will try reading books on a screen instead of the printed page is being joined by evidence of a nascent but growing market for the Kindle and its competitor from Sony.
Much of the talk focuses on the comment by Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder and chief executive, who said for the first time that the Kindle is having an impact on book sales.
"Of the 125,000 books available both as a physical book and on Kindle, Kindle books already account for over 6 percent of units sold," Bezos said in a statement coinciding with a recent book publishing trade show in Los Angeles.
On the other hand, Amazon won't disclose how many consumers have bought a Kindle -- reduced to $359 last week from $399 -- or how many actual e-books have sold for the device.
Nonetheless, publishers are making more titles available on the Kindle. Simon & Schuster is adding 5,000 titles to its Kindle offerings after e-book sales grew by 40 percent in 2007.
E-books represent the fastest-growing category for publishers, though the sales volume is tiny compared with traditional books. In 2007, sales increased by 23.6 percent over 2006, accounting for $67 million in sales. Overall, the book industry grew by 3.2 percent in 2007 and had sales of $25 billion, according to the Association of American Publishers.
Ross Rubin, an analyst for the NPD Group, said it's too early to say whether e-books...

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