>I finally got my hands on a Sony Reader PRS-505, and it’s everything I’d hoped it would be. Just having this little baby around makes me want to read all the time.

For those who don’t know, the PRS-505 is a small, lightweight, portable e-reader that uses technologies called e-ink and e-paper (developed by MIT) to remarkable effect. The display is superb, with very sharp, crisp black lettering than can be scaled up or down in size (3 settings).

Reading from the device doesn’t tire the eyes in the same way as an LCD or backlit screen does, either. In fact, I’ve even found that I can read a little faster from the PRS-505′s screen than I can from a paperback book.

Sure, e-books are still getting off the ground. They’ve had a bit of a false start, perhaps because people automatically assumed it meant reading from a computer monitor, and we all do enough of that already, right? (You’re doing it now!) But I think the new generation of readers (Sony has recently brought out the 700, and Amazon has the Kindle 2) are really pointing the way forward. They can store hundreds, even thousands, of books depending on format and the capacity of your SD card, and, despite it being an older model, I’m finding the PRS-505 an absolute joy to use.

That said, there’s still some way to go before these e-readers go mainstream. What really needs to happen now is for publishers and distributors to embrace the new publication model. To be honest, I think they’re terrified. Technology empowers authors, and I can imagine a time in the future when writers will sell e-books to fans directly from their websites without any need for profit-hungry middlemen. Of course, there’s a down-side to that, too. Quality could well start to slip without professional editors and proof-readers on hand to look things over before a book goes to market.

And then there’s price. As things stand now, e-books are priced way too high. There’s no way publishers can justify charging similar prices to a standard hardback or even a paperback, whether the book is a bestseller or not.

Availability has to improve, too. There’s no reason why every book shouldn’t be released on both Sony and Amazon formats at the same time as it’s released in traditional hardcopy. The cost of creating e-books is negligible and (best of all) involves no need whatsoever to kill trees.

I mentioned e-books in an interview a few years back (you can read it here), and was a bit shocked by some of the subsequent comments/forum posts. It seemed at the time (and it may still be true), that there was a tremendous amount of resistance to moving away from the printed page. Perhaps things have improved by now. Current sales of both the Sony and Amazon e-readers in the USA seem to indicate that they have.

I hope the technology will continue to proliferate. Who knows? In a few years, you might be reading a Steve Parker novel on your own little e-ink device.