The Amazon Kindle ebook reader family has attracted a enormous amount of publicity over the past few months. The Kindle 2 was launched in February 2009, to replace the original Kindle. Not long after, in June 2009, the new bigger Kindle DX was launched – specifically targeted at readers of newspapers, magazines and textbooks.

Sales of the Kindle readers, books from the Kindle bookstore and Kindle accessories are reportedly very good. Although many industry watchers have suggested that the Kindle price is too high consumers seem more than happy to pay for Amazon’s high tech gizmo. It’s noteworthy that, where a Kindle edition of a book coexists alongside the conventional paperback or hardback offering, the sales of the Kindle version make up 35% of sales.

That’s a very high number given that the Kindle has been available for a mere eighteen months. As impressive as the sales figures appear, there are still many more sales opportunities for the traditional formats. Probably it shouldn’t be too surprising – someone willing to pay between $359 and $489 for an electronic book reader is probably going to be a keen reader after all.

It really is easy to believe the predictions that the Kindle is going to change the way we read books, and probably in the not too distant future. However, it’s also worth thinking about the other side of the coin – the Kindle is going to change the way books are published and presented to the public.

We can probably expect the established publishing pattern – hardback release followed by paperback release a few months later – to evolve. After all, why not release the electronic version first and hold back on expensive print runs until the likely level of interest has been established? And considering the reduced financial risk to publishing houses, and the somewhat reduced time required to get a new book onto Amazon’s electronic shelves, might we see an increased willingness to debut new, untried authors?

We could even see a significant increase in authors who choose to self publish rather than follow the more traditional route.

In years to come, the Kindle will be superseded by electronic readers considerably more sophisticated. These will address the oft quoted shortcomings of the current Kindle readers – lack of color, high device cost, less than satisfactory contrast etc. The Kindle will no doubt seem primitive in comparison – but it is the Kindle that is revolutionising the way we read and, just as importantly, the method by which books are published.