Richard Gorman Predicts Success for Amazon's Used E-Book Market

Ever since the emergence of the e-book, cynics and skeptics have wondered if digital reading will one day spell the end of traditional books or at least, of conventional publishers and old-fashioned booksellers. E-book purveyors, meanwhile, have sought to make the electronic reading experience as true to traditional reading as possible. Now, Amazon.com has announced a major step forward a marketplace through which readers can sell secondhand copies of their e-books. Amazon has already been awarded the patents necessary to make this used e-book market a reality and the news of Amazon's latest advances has earned the attention of Richard Gorman.

Gorman, a long-time digital marketing and e-commerce professional, is also a champion of Amazon.com, and, in a new statement to the press, he predicts that this new e-book marketplace will become a success. "For many readers especially those who devour books voraciously, and thus end up spending a great deal of money on new editions the chance to browse secondhand bookstores, and perhaps sell well-worn volumes, is a major part of the reading experience," Gorman says, in his press statement. "Of course, it is impossible for the e-book market to precisely emulate this time-honored tradition, but Amazon is making a big step in the right direction."

Gorman goes on to note that there are some inherent virtues to Amazon's secondhand e-book idea. "What makes this different from a traditional used bookstore is just the obvious fact that you are not dealing with physical assets here," he affirms. "Your old books may become dog-eared and bent, simply through the wear and tear that come with reading them. That is not true with e-books, however and indeed, a used e-book is not going to be any different than a brand new one, in that regard."

The Amazon.com secondhand e-book market will essentially allow e-book owners to sell their licenses to other readers, presumably at a discounted rate. Though the specifics of the Amazon plan are not yet known, Gorman suggests that the Amazon business model will likely mirror the company's current secondhand sale offerings. "Amazon will effectively act as an intermediary, most likely, facilitating transactions as one client sells his e-book license to another."