Perhaps Apple boss Steven Jobs’ declaration that “People don’t read anymore” does not rank with Neville Chamberlain’s “Peace for our time” speech in 1938, just before Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. But it is not out of line to mention both in the same breath to exemplify how colossally wrong smart people can be.

Jobs made his scornful comment in response to a question about the Kindle. “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is; the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year.” Aside from offending every literate person in the United States, including those who read one book or less every year, Jobs appalled everybody in the e-book business. They had looked to him to do for reading books what he had done for listening to music. By implying he was not entertaining a book-reading platform for the iPhone, he slapped the collective face of the e-book business. Thwarted by his hostility to an iPhone reader, customers turned to the Kindle to fill the e-book vacuum. Jobs could not have boosted the Kindle any more effectively if he had bought a controlling share of Amazon.com.

Fortunately, a number of determined and enterprising programmers took it upon themselves to spec – or hack – a reader application for the iPhone. And even more fortunately, Jobs did not discourage them. One hopes he realized he had spoken recklessly.

Which brings us to the Stanza, Lexcycle’s free e-book reader now in use on the iPhone and iPod Touch. Charlie Sorrel writes in Wired, “Stanza has been downloaded almost 600,000 times, and users are in turn downloading 50-60,000 books a day.” The key to this breakthrough is a partnership between Lexcycle and the online e-book seller Fictionwise.

Aside from the satisfaction of seeing Steve Jobs proven wrong, it’s also inspiring to see Fictionwise taking this initiative. We at E-Reads are big fans of Fictionwise. It is our principal e-book distributor and a major reason why this industry is beginning to thrive.

To paraphrase Neville Chamberlain, “There will be e-books for our time.” No thanks to Steve Jobs.

RC