- Tablets are killing ebook readers – but nobody cares, right? In November 2007, Amazon launched the Kindle. The first of its kind electronic book reader that was supposed to be the death of printed books. That never quite happened. What has happened though, after four consecutive years of phenomenal growth, sales of ebook readers have finally begun to slump, down 36% in 2012. Tablets, the ebook reader's younger and full-featured sibling, are to blame.