How Apple Could Make E-Books Work

E-Books: a natural extension of the iTunes Store.
I wonder why Apple hasn’t done for electronic books what it has done for other creative arts such as music, movies, and TV shows. Why hasn’t Apple crafted a top-notch shopping and viewing experience for books, and then slapped the greatest works of our most honored writers in copy-protected chains? Why is it that the basic concept of reading hasn’t been perverted into yet another massive, glorious, fire-belching engine that makes money for Apple?
MacWorld

E-Books Fuel Sales of Romance Novels

Erotic romance author pinpoints e-books' benefits
Readers of romance novels have complained about the covers for decades because they don't want the public to see them carrying one of "those books." E-books help us get around that problem, and that's probably one of the reasons that romance e-books sales estimates claim about half of the overall e-books market.
eMediaWire

Why Sony Lost the Battle of the E-Book

Danger for Sony: it is already too late.
Sony has squandered an early lead in a new field because another company was better not just at inventing an electronic device but also at linking it to a wireless network and making it easy for consumers to use. The Sony product is the Reader, a portable device for reading electronic books, which the company launched two years ago. This time Sony’s competitor is Amazon, which has swept past Sony with the Kindle, a rival e-book reader that is showing every sign of becoming the iPod of this nascent market.
FT