EBooks are the fastest growing publishing market today. They were predicted to supersede traditional books by 2013. In fact, Amazon has reported that eBooks are now exceeding traditional books.
And why not?
While the market for traditional books will never go away, eBooks are much more effective as a reading media. The old days where reading an eBook was harder than reading a traditional book is long gone.
Here are seven reasons to choose eBooks over traditional books for your reading pleasure.
1. The cost of eBooks versus traditional books. There are many costs involved in traditional eBooks. For example, there is the cost of paper and printing. There is the cost of distribution and shipping. And there is the cost of storage, shelving and maintaining inventory. None of these costs are included in an eBook. This is why the cost of traditional books is higher than the cost of an equivalent eBook. And those costs can safely be predicted to continue to rise.
2. The number of eBooks you can carry versus traditional books. Yes, I'm a writer and that means that I have a lot of books. And I live in a house of readers. My library has taken over every room in my house. I have at least one bookshelf in every room. But I'm not the worst for collecting books by any stretch. In fact, I have one friend who opened a bookstore to sell his collection!
However, if I want to take a book with me to read, I can only take one. If I'm not able to get in to that book -- too bad. If I finish it early -- too bad. If I'm reading a large, textbook -- too bad.
With eBooks, I could literally take my entire library with me and still be able to carry it anywhere. Amazon says that its four gigabyte Kindle can carry three thousand, five hundred books. Attach a sixteen gigabyte memory stick and you've got enough storage for over twenty thousand books. More than sufficient choice for a week let alone a single outing.
3. The ability to adjust for disabilities. Within the next ten years we can expect the number of people suffering disabilities to grow to forty-five percent of the population. EBook readers are able to adjust the display to allow for visual deficiencies. They can even read the book to you if you are unable to read. Something that traditional books can't do.
4. The ability to adjust font sizes and types. It's not just the disabled that find the ability to adjust font size and type useful. Even those of us who are fully sighted find certain fonts easier to read than others. Especially when the light changes.
5. No more missing pages. We've all experienced it. You're really into this book. You've been reading and reading it for hours. And just about where the hero is about to be killed by rampaging elephants, you find that the printer messed up and stuck the first folio in rather than the right folio. Buy enough paperbacks and you'll run into lots of printer mess-ups. Something that won't happen with an eBook. Or at least if it does it will get fixed as soon as the publisher finds out.
6. Manuals are more easily maintained. Buying traditional manuals has always been a loser's game. Yes, you need them to get the most out of whatever software or computer you are using. But they're obsolete with the next release. And here you're stuck with a forty-six dollar boat anchor. But with eBooks, the author can easily maintain them. Publishers are beginning to appear who will automatically provide upgrades for your eBook. For a price of course!
7. Ease of purchase. One of the problems with traditional books has always been finding and buying them. You have to get in your car, run down to the local bookstore and then hope that they've got the book you want. That improved with the arrival of Amazon and online bookstores. You were far more likely to find the book you wanted but then you'd have to wait weeks for it to arrive in the mail. With eBooks you sign on, pick the book, enter the information and voila. You have your eBook ready to read.
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