Kindles are just a named technology, and will indeed pass away. They are not ebooks, just a device/format to read them with. You've confused the two things. Any single use digital tool had a built in fatal flaw. Look at phones - they do a lot more than just make a call these days. Kindles as a device will have to change significantly, or die.

I also hope kindle as a format dies, as it is proprietary. There needs to be a good ebook format that is open for any one to use that works on all devices.

I agree with you that ebooks can lead to buying printed books. I hope what came across in my earlier postings is that I do not think a ban is in anyway useful or wanted.

However, I do understand the sentiment of this bookseller. Day after day, year after year, many booksellers and a good many publishers are bombarded with the messages that the printed book is dead, that one *must* make the jump to digital or their business will fail, and that remaining books *must* be discounted ala Amazon. They are also battered by policies of various larger organizations that want to use their shops as showrooms, and then take away the purchase that results from their hard work and effort.

For my part, I have lived through no less than 3 iterations of the book is dead in the last 20 years, all wrong. I constantly see mistaken or misrepresented data regarding sales and use of printed books by those advocating electronic books, and far too many readers that seem to lack any understanding of the book business, print or otherwise, but feel free to tell booksellers and publishers what they should do. Certainly consumers should let their preferences be known, but far too many seem outraged that every book is not digital, or that every digital book is not 99 cents.

The lack of balance, the continual doom and gloom (which I think is overblown, as was the death of vinyl records), and the steady battering of larger organizations can certainly put one on a hair trigger.

It should also be remembered that ebooks are often the only way of helping our authors sell internationally. Bookshops overseas won't order books unless they are also published in their countries. For smaller publishers this may not be possible, but with ebooks we can introduce authors to an international readership. Persuading booklovers not to buy ebooks is very damaging to smaller publishers and authors who are just starting to make a name for themselves.

We also depend on bookshops as most sales are for print books. But the thing about ereaders is that they reawaken an addiction to reading. People who buy ereaders start to read far more. They buy both ebooks and print books. They increase sales in both formats. We don't buy ereaders and stop buying print books - far from it.

I've noticed the effect on public transport in London. Years ago the carriages were full of people reading books. Sales of books dropped long before there were ereaders. People were using other gadgets on the tube, and the main culprit was the mobile phone. Everybody would be looking at phones, reading messages, playing games. Ebooks didn't destroy book sales.

Then ereaders came along. I see loads of people reading books again on the tube. And the encouraging thing is that this new addiction to reading was followed up by more people reading print books too. Whereas a few years ago print books seemed to have vanished from the tube carriages, now I see a number of people reading print books each time I travel.

Ereaders won people back to reading, and print books benefit from it. When we sell ebooks they don't cut into our print book sales, they add to them. It's not either/or for readers. Ereaders are increasing overall book sales, they don't cut into print book sales, and I feel they will help publishers survive and help pay for print runs. Book sales were falling before there were ereaders due to other interests like mobile phones and the internet. That's why ereaders help win readers back and create that bridge to print books, which addicted readers also buy.

And bookshops can sell ebooks too, as Daunt is showing with his 'click and collect' to get people into stores. It could also be a 'click and buy' ebooks and you could have sales terminals in stores. It should all help increase sales if viewed positively.