Editor Daniel Menaker on eReaders

Editor Daniel Menaker on where he thinks eReaders and eBooks will be in 10 years:

I don’t really know, but I think in 10 years there will probably be as many e-readers as there are digital cameras when you go into a store. There will also be devices that are e-readers along with everything else they do, so it may be that e-readers like the Nook and Kindle are transitional. I think book-length texts will probably get shorter, as they have in printed books, though of course there will still be 500-page door-stops, too, and that we will see a very rapid evolution. I think that in 10–15 years at least 50% of book-length texts will be read digitally, probably more, and printed books will shrink down to a special, almost boutique market. And then, they may expand again, because it’s not only geezers who like books. The book is a wonderful device. Also, I think that there is something about an electronic text that makes it harder to become immersed in. Pixels move—even though you don’t see them move. I think there is an unconscious awareness of their lack of physical realness.

Read more of an interview with him (very little centered on eReaders) here at Publisher's Weekly..