While e-readers may contain thousands of volumes of books on a single, portable device and allows users to download new titles wirelessly from wherever they are, to many it feels like something is missing.
Paper books may be waning but are not extinct. For generations that have enjoyed the flip of pages in an actual book, solid covers and tactile paper holds a real nostalgia. To bridge the gap between the electronic readers and the pulp of a book, Allen, Texas residents John Cullen and his spouse Connie recently unveiled a product that gives users the book look and feel with the technical prowess of an e-reader.
“I was given a Kindle as a Christmas gift two years ago. I gave my wife one and she gave me one without either of us knowing what we were getting each other and we gave our daughter one,” said John Cullen. “My wife immediately got online and got a case. I was never satisfied with finding one but we’re all big readers and I liked the idea of something being hidden in a book, like old Remington revolvers used to be.”
Cullen sat on his idea for a few months before having a vivid dream about it at a hotel. The first thing he saw after opening the door to the hotel hallway was a copy of USA Today with a headline about the explosion of the Kindle reader.
“I thought – okay, this is telling me too much,” Cullen said. A few months since the dream, Cullen has made the product a reality.
Marketed as the inBOOK, the cases are real hardback books with pages stripped out to accommodate Nook, Nook Color and Kindle second and third generation e-readers with the promise of more devices to be supported in the future.
Those ordering the cases have the pick of four hardcovers including Pride and Predjudice, Sherlock Holmes, a black leather folio case with a quote by Theodore Roosevelt, or a tan leather folio case with a quote about peace.
The cases will launch for pre-order at a discounted price on Kickstarter in two days or be available on Amazon.com around August 1 for a retail price of $49. The Cullens are in talks with Amazon to make the product “Kindle certified.”
The couple said each case is handmade and carved to include an audio port for Kindle models that allow the text-to-speech and MP3 playback functions.
Would you like all your dreams to come true? Follow Marc Speir on twitter @truthorcon.
