eBooks

eBooks

Stephen King brought epublishing to the attention of the world by distributing his novel, Riding the Bullet, exclusively in eBook form. In the first 24 hours of availability, 400,000 copies were downloaded - more than any other book in any format!

The electronic book (eBook) is an emerging form of communication and is generating a burgeoning ePublishing industry. Many users purchase a special hand held reader which is about the size of a book and download purchased books from Internet sources. eBook readers make curling up in bed with a good book much easier than trying to do the same with a 17" monitor.

The reading experience is similar to a paperback. You explore a book page by page using a touch screen (no scrolling) and the text is justified. You can add bookmarks, and return easily to previously viewed pages. You can search for words or phrases and get instant access to a page regardless if the content searched for is on page 1 or 400. There's a cover page, a table of contents.

EBooks come in various lengths following the printing industry guidelines with a publication of 10,000 to 40,000 words being a "novelette." Novels are over 40,000 words. It should be noted that not only novels, but nonfiction, training, and other text based material is also published in this electronic format.

Electronic books will be the major publishing revolution in the coming years: the market for electronic publishing is estimated at $US 2.3 billion in 2003. An example of eBook popularity is the fact that over 5 million copies of Microsoft Reader were distributed for use on desktop, notebook, and Pocket PC systems in the past year. In 2001 Palm Digital Media reported that nearly 180,000 eBooks were sold, a more than 40-percent increase from year before.

Some of you will find yourself integrating your multimedia skills into electronic publishing jobs. It is good now to learn about this new medium and be prepared for the future.

A Canadian friend, Bob MacNevin, has been a desktop publisher for several years. He has been learning what he can about the design and publication of eBooks and has provided below an excellent list of references for those wanting to know more about this medium. He suggests that the Adobe eBook Reader is a sensible, well behaved piece of software. Probably downloading it and a free sample eBook would be the quickest way to get a snapshot of the medium's potential.

References:

Electronic Book Web -- eBook Primer http://12.108.175.91/ebookweb/primer

Open eBook Forum http://www.openebook.org/

Adobe eBook Info and free Adobe eBook Reader Download http://www.adobe.com/epaper/ebooks/main.html

Amazon.com eBook FAQ

Amazon.com eBook Section