[cstross]

A disadvantage I can see is that there must be a MASS production of e-ink displays...

Cost of goods will cripple this scheme, because you seem to have implicitly assumed that the price you pay for a book in a shop is on the same order as the manufacturing cost of goods for the book block in your hand.

It's not.

Roughly 10% of the SRP of a book sold through a bricks'n'mortar store is reflected in the cost of goods -- a mass market paperback costs 50-80 cents to manufacture, and a bound hardcover costs about $2.00-2.50, of which a surprising chunk goes on stitching it into the binding, and printing the glossy wrap-around. (Ratios are a bit different in the UK where, for example, hardbacks are perfect (glue) bound rather than saddle-stitched.)

I can conceive of a low-resolution e-ink reader primed with a roughly 1Mb FLASH chip containing a single novel wholesaling for maybe $15-20, if produced by the million. I can't see the same tech wholesaling for $1-$2.

2. A secondary issue: in some genres, readers adopted ebook reader technology early precisely because the other public couldn't tell what they were reading. This was identified as an issue by Harlequin's market researchers -- Romance leads category fiction sales, accounting for about 50% of the total, and Romance readers are a little twitchy about being judged for their choice of reading by other members of the public they encounter e.g. on public transport or elsewhere where they might be reading. This runs exactly opposite to what you're suggesting.

[Elho]

That is indeed the exact opposite of what i'm trying to achieve with my idea. 50% is a lot!!

Pricewise, i have no idea how e-reader technology will evolve. It must indeed be very cheap to produce. On the other hand, you still have people that buy new records over mp3's in the iTunes store...