ebooks makes it much easier to get book in original language, so if you're reader that's willing to read in original language . . . demand for translators may drop as a result
Not always, necessarily, alas. The Amazon Kindle international stores seem to be very locked down -- I think it's currently the case that an American resident who has a US Kindle and wants to use the Japanese Kindle store needs to buy a new Kindle, register it with a new email address and a new credit card, register on Amazon Japan with a Japanese address... and even then they will be suspicious if you make too many downloads from a US IP address.
(I was REALLY HOPING that ebooks would allow me to read more Japanese books without paying for international shipping all the time, and... well, at some stores there are hopeful signs, and at others there really aren't.)
I also doubt that having access to original-language works has much effect on demand for translations; for any given work I tend to have a very strong preference about whether I want to read the original or the translation. Although I have no idea whether that's true of most people who read fiction not originally published in their own native language or not!
no subject
Not always, necessarily, alas. The Amazon Kindle international stores seem to be very locked down -- I think it's currently the case that an American resident who has a US Kindle and wants to use the Japanese Kindle store needs to buy a new Kindle, register it with a new email address and a new credit card, register on Amazon Japan with a Japanese address... and even then they will be suspicious if you make too many downloads from a US IP address.
(I was REALLY HOPING that ebooks would allow me to read more Japanese books without paying for international shipping all the time, and... well, at some stores there are hopeful signs, and at others there really aren't.)
I also doubt that having access to original-language works has much effect on demand for translations; for any given work I tend to have a very strong preference about whether I want to read the original or the translation. Although I have no idea whether that's true of most people who read fiction not originally published in their own native language or not!