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An e-book (short for electronic book, also written eBook or ebook), also known as a digital book, is an e-text that forms the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book, sometimes restricted with a digital rights management system. An E-book, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary of English, is "an electronic version of a printed book which can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose".^[1] E-books are usually read on dedicated hardware devices known as e-Readers or e-book devices. Some personal computers and cell phones can also be used, especially to read documents in pdf format.

Contents 1 History 2 Formats 3 Comparison of e-books with printed books 3.1 Advantages 3.2 Drawbacks 3.3 Digital rights management 4 Production 5 e-Readers 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External links

[edit] History

Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques, and other subjects.

Numerous e-book formats emerged and proliferated, some supported by major software companies such as Adobe's PDF format, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers naturally followed multiple formats, most of them specializing in only one format, and thereby fragmenting the e-book market even more. Due to exclusiveness and limited readerships of e-books, the fractured market of independents and specialty authors lacked consensus regarding a standard for packaging and selling e-books. E-books continued to gain in their own underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books that were in the public domain. At the same time, authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial (and occasionally unauthorized) catalogs of books became available over the web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public.

As of 2009^[update], new marketing models for e-books were being developed and dedicated reading hardware was produced. E-books (as opposed to ebook readers) have yet to achieve global distribution. Only three e-book readers dominate the market, Amazon's Kindle model or Sony's PRS-500 and Bookeen with Cybook Gen3 and Cybook Opus^[2]. However, not all authors have endorsed the concept of electronic publishing. J.K Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series, has stated that there will be no e-versions of her books.^[3][4]

• 1971: Michael S. Hart launches the Gutenberg Project.
• 1985-1992 Robert Stein starts Voyager Company Expanded Books and books on CD-ROMs.
• 1993: Zahur Klemath Zapata develops the first software to read digital books. Digital Book v.1 and the first digital book is published On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts (Thomas de Quincey).
• 1993: Digital Book, Inc. offers the first 50 digital books in Floppy disk with Digital Book Format (DBF).
• 1993: Hugo Award for Best Novel nominee texts published on CD-ROM by Brad Templeton.
• 1993: Bibliobytes, a project of free digital books online in Internet.
• 1995: Amazon starts to sell physical books in Internet.
• 1996: Project Gutenberg reaches 1,000 titles. The target is 1,000,000
• 1998 Kim Blagg obtained the first ISBN issued to an ebook and began marketing multimedia-enhanced ebooks on CDs through retailers including amazon.com, bn.com and borders.com. Shortly thereafter through her company "Books OnScreen" she introduced the ebooks at the Book Expo America in Chicago, IL to an impressed, but unconvinced bookseller audience.
• 1998: Launched the first ebook Readers: Rocket ebook and SoftBook.

• 1998: Cybook / Cybook Gen1 Sold and manufactured at first by Cytale (1998 - 2003) then by Bookeen
• 1998-1999: Websites selling ebooks in English, like eReader.com and eReads.com.
• 2000: Stephen King offers his book "Riding the Bullet" in digital file, it only can be read on a computer.
• 2001: Todoebook.com, the first website selling ebooks in Spanish.
• 2002: Random House and HarperCollins start to sell digital versions of their titles in English.
• 2005: Amazon buys Mobipocket.
• 2006: Sony presents the Sony Reader with e-ink.
• 2006: LibreDigital launched BookBrowse as an online reader for publisher content.
• 2006: BooksOnBoard, the largest independent ebookstore, opens and sells ebooks and audiobooks in six different formats.
• 2007: Zahurk Technologies, Corp,launched the first digital book library on Internet ‘BibliotecaKlemath.com’, ‘loslibrosditales.com’ and ‘digitalbook.us’
• 2007: Amazon launches Kindle in US.
• 2007: Bookeen launched Cybook Gen3 in Europe.
• 2008: Adobe and Sony agreed to share their technologies (Reader and DRM).
• 2008: Sony sells the Sony Reader PRS-505 in UK and France
• 2008: Amazon launched Kindle 2 in US.
• 2008: BooksOnBoard is first to sell ebooks for iPhones.
• 2009: Bookeen releases the Cybook Opus in the US and in Europe.
• 2009: Amazon releases the Kindle DX in the US.
• 2009: Amazon releases the Kindle 2 International Edition worldwide.
• 2009: Barnes & Noble releases the Nook in the US.

[edit] Formats

There are a variety of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books. A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a format for production. Every format has its proponents and champions, and debates over which format is best can become intense.

[edit] Comparison of e-books with printed books

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[edit] Advantages

• An e-book can be purchased, downloaded and used immediately, whereas when one buys a book one has to go to a bookshop, or wait for a delivery.
• There are over 2 million free books available for download as of August 2009.
• Educational text books (e-textbooks) can be distributed at a lower cost than print versions per student.
• Second generation e-books (and colour e-readers) have motion capability.
• e-Books can be printed for less than the price of traditional new books using new on demand book printers.
• Text can be searched automatically and cross-referenced using hyperlinks.
• A single e-reader containing several books is easier to carry around (less weight and volume) than the same books (or sometimes even a single book) in printed form. Even hundreds or thousands of books may be stored on the same device. Using removable media even more can be carried around easily.
• Also at a fixed place such as at home it can be an advantage that an e-book collection requires very little space.
• Mobile availability of e-books may be provided for users with a mobile data connection, so that these e-books need not be carried around.
• E-books can allow non-permanent highlighting and annotation.
• E-book websites can include the ability to translate books into many different languages. ^[5]
• Many E-book readers have the ability to enlarge fonts past standard large-print size.^[6]
• The batteries on many readers last for "about a week of sustained reading."^[7]
• E-books may allow animated images or multimedia clips to be embedded.
• E-books allow for greater fidelity in colour reproduction compared to CMYK colour printing^{[citation needed]}(although most e-book readers have only monochrome displays).
• Depending on the device an e-book may be readable in low light or even total darkness. For devices for which this applies, energy consumption for reading without daylight is less than that of a lamp needed for reading a printed book.
• An e-book can automatically open at the last read page.
• While an e-book reader costs much more than one book, the electronic texts are generally cheaper. Moreover, a great share of books are available free of charge. For example, all fiction from before the year 1900 is in the public domain.
• Text-to-speech software can be used to read the text. However, the voice will be auto-generated, thus the quality worse than audiobooks.
• An e-book can be offered indefinitely, without ever going "out of print".
• Depending on possible digital rights management, it may be easy and cheap to produce a back-up for the case that the e-book is lost or damaged, and/or it may be possible to get a free new copy if that happens.
• It is easier for authors to self-publish e-books.
• A free e-book can stimulate the sales of the printed version.^[8]
• The production of e-books does not consume paper, ink, etc. Printed books use 3 times more raw materials and 78 times more water to produce^[9]

[edit] Drawbacks

• Reading e-books requires newer and upgraded electronic devices and changing software. Even in the case of reading it on a personal computer one already has, it may require additional software.
• A paper book will never turn off, unlike an ebook.
• Only a small fraction of all books are available as ebooks. Most books will not be ebooks for some time.
• Most ebooks will not have all the graphics, photos, illustrated covers, tactile feel, quality paper, and beautiful binding.
• Paper books can be bought and wrapped for a present, unlike an ebook.
• A library of books is visually appealing, unlike the data storage of ebooks.
• A small paperback is easier to carry around than a typical e-book reader.
• E-book readers require electrical power; in the case of mobile use, the battery will eventually get exhausted.
• A book will never turn off or be unusable. A book is long lasting, especially in a remote area without electricity.
• E-book readers are more susceptible to damage from being dropped or hit.
• E-book readers can malfunction and e-books can be damaged due to faults in hardware or software.
• "As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that [electronic] copies will last. Bits become degraded over time. Documents may get lost in cyberspace...Hardware and software become extinct at a distressing rate." ^[10]
• E-books may cause people "to do the grazing and quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author's ideas." ^[11]
• People may use E-books simply for reference purposes rather than for extended reading for pleasure and leisure. ^[12]
• E-book readers are more likely to be stolen than individual paper books.
• A few used books are far more affordable. Hundreds of used books can be purchased for the same price as a e-book reader.
• Depending on the device, an e-book may be difficult to read in bright sunlight.
• Most publishers don't produce the e-book equivalent of their printed books. In other cases the product quality is lower or it is released later.
• E-books can be easily hacked through the use of hardware or software modifications and widely disseminated on the Internet and/or other e-book readers, without approval from the author or publisher. This ease of piracy is a significant drawback for publishers.^[13]
• If an e-book device is stolen, lost, or broken beyond repair, all e-books stored on the device may be lost (Although this may be avoided by backups either on another device or by the e-book provider).
• There is a loss of tactility and aesthetics of book-bindings. Also lost is the ability to very quickly riffle through the pages to search for a particular section or to get a sense of the book merely by sight.
• Screen resolution of reading devices is currently lower than actual paper.^[14]
• Due to the digital rights management, customers cannot resell or loan their e-books to other readers. ^[15]
• Some books available as e-book cannot be read on some e-book readers because they are not supplied in a format those readers allow.^{[citation needed]}
• While printed books remain readable for ages, changing technologies and less durable electronic storage media require e-books to be copied to a new carrier after some years.
• E-book readers require various toxic substances to produce, and are an environmental hazard as they're non-biodegradable.
• Physical discomfort for some users, including eye strain^{[citation needed]}.
• One will never read thousands of books really well or over a short period of time, so the high amount held on an ebook reader becomes irrelevant (Though it might be useful if the limited amount of ebooks are used as a partial reference library).
• Some E-book formats cannot be easily backed up. If a book is accidentally lost or deleted, you must repurchase the book.
• A book is relatively safe and durable from electromagnetic pulses, overloads, water, strong winds, falls, and accidents.
• Books are more readily available for poor people to read. Expensive technology is not readily available to most of humanity.
• A book on paper cannot be destroyed easily or damaged by a sharp blow.
• An e-book reader needs to be protected against extreme cold, heat, water, sand, and weather.
• A small percentage of readers will use e-books, as paper books still remain the most popular choice so far.

[edit] Digital rights management

See also Digital rights management on E-books

Anti-circumvention techniques may be used to restrict what the user may do with an e-book. For instance, it may not be possible to transfer ownership of an e-book to another person, though such a transaction is common with physical books. Some devices can phone home to track readers and reading habits, restrict printing, or arbitrarily modify reading material. This includes restricting the copying and distribution of works in the public domain through the use of "click-wrap" licensing, effectively limiting the rights of the public to distribute, sell or use texts in the public domain freely.

Most e-book publishers do not warn their customers about the possible implications of the digital rights management tied to their products. Generally they claim that digital rights management is meant to prevent copying of the e-book. However in many cases it is also possible that digital rights management will result in the complete denial of access by the purchaser to the e-book.^{[citation needed]} With some formats of DRM, the e-book is tied to a specific computer or device. In these cases the DRM will usually let the purchaser move the book a limited number of times after which he cannot use it on any additional devices. If the purchaser upgrades or replaces their devices eventually they may lose access to their purchase. Some forms of digital rights management depend on the existence of online services to authenticate the purchasers. When the company that provides the service goes out of business or decides to stop providing the service, the purchaser will no longer be able to access the e-book.

As with digital rights management in other media, e-books are more like rental or leasing than purchase. The restricted book comes with a number of restrictions, and eventually access to the purchase can be removed by a number of different parties involved. These include the publisher of the book, the provider of the DRM scheme, and the publisher of the reader software. These are all things that are significantly different from the realm of experiences anyone has had with a physical copy of the book.

[edit] Production

Some e-books are produced simultaneously with the production of a printed format, as described in electronic publishing, though in many instances they may not be put on sale until later. Often, e-books are produced from pre-existing hard-copy books, generally by document scanning, sometimes with the use of robotic book scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces a set of image files, which may additionally be converted into text format by an OCR program.^[16] Occasionally, as in some e-text projects, a book may be produced by re-entering the text from a keyboard.

As a newer development, sometimes only the electronic version of a book is produced by the publisher. It is also possible to convert electronic book to a printed book by print on demand. However this is an exception as tradition dictates that a book be launched in the print format and later if the author wishes, an electronic version is also produced.

Among the first Internet-only publishers of new e-books were Boson Books, Hard Shell Word Factory and Online Originals, all founded in the mid-1990s.^{[citation needed]} Each pioneered different aspects of what has since become common practice amongst e-book publishers, e.g. the support of multiple formats including PDFs, the payment of much higher royalty rates than conventional publishers, and the online presentation of free samples. Hard Shell Word Factory set the first professional standards for commercial e-books and pioneered author-friendly contracts. Online Originals was the first e-book publisher to win mainstream book reviews (in The Times) and a nomination for a major literary prize (the Booker Prize).

In 2004-2005, many newcomers to e-book publishing have included major print publishers. At the same time, e-publishers have started to offer print versions of many of their titles.^{[citation needed]} Thus the line between the two is fast blurring.

There are some parts of the industry where there are particularly notable leading firms. In the general field of science-fiction and fantasy, Baen Books, an American publishing company established in 1983 by science fiction publishing industry long-timer Jim Baen (1943-2006) has a well-established position. It is a science fiction and fantasy publishing house that specializes in space opera/military science fiction and fantasy (though it does not restrict itself to these subgenres). It is notable for releasing books without DRM in a variety of formats, before hard-copy publication, and pre-releasing ebooks in parts before the hard-copy release. Many older titles are available for free, especially the first book in a series.

E-books have their own bestseller lists, including those compiled by IDPF, BooksOnBoard and Fictionwise.^{[citation needed]} There are two yearly awards for excellence in e-books. The longest-standing and most inclusive of these is the EPPIE award, given by EPIC since 2000.^{[citation needed]} The other is the Dream Realm Award, first awarded to speculative fiction e-books in 2002.

[edit] e-Readers

e-Readers may be specifically designed for that purpose, or intended for other purposes as well. The term is restricted to hardware devices and used to describe a category type.

Specialized devices have the advantage of doing one thing well. Specifically, they tend to have the right screen size, battery lifespan, lighting and weight. A disadvantage of such devices is that they are often expensive when compared to generic devices such as laptops and PDAs.

[edit] See also

• Accessible publishing
• Blook
• Biblical software
• Bookboon
• Comparison of e-book formats
• Digital edition
• Digital library
• E-book reader
• Electronic paper
• Electronic Publishing
• EVDO
• Expanded Books
• Flexible electronics
• Issuu
• Lexcycle Stanza
• List of digital library projects
• List of e-book readers
• Memory hole
• Networked book
• Notetaking
• OpenBerg
• OverDrive, Inc.
• OpenReader Consortium
• Project Gutenberg
• RCA connector
• Safari Books Online
• Webserial
• Virtual novel
• Writers Exchange E-Publishing

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Electronic books

• Project Gutenberg
• The Online Books Page
• About the Google Book Settlement (GBS) and online books (rights)
• E-Books Spark Battle Inside Publishing Industry (Washington Post, 27 Dec 2009)

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