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 2008^[update], new marketing models for e-books are being developed and dedicated reading hardware has been produced. E-books have yet to achieve global distribution. Only two e-book readers dominate the market, Amazon's Kindle model or Sony's PRS-500. E-books have seen good growth in Japan throughout the 2000s and it currently has an e-book market worth ¥10 billion. 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 the books.

E-books in the kindle format can now be purchased from electronic stores such as Amazon.com.  Users can get hundreds of specialized Ebooks for free from FreeEbookEveryDay.com.

Where can you read an Ebook?  What are some portable readers?

E-book readers may be specifically designed for reading Ebooks, or intended for other purposes as well.

First, an Ebook can be read on all personal computers, both PC based and MAC.  Just double click on the Ebook file, or click OPEN when downloading the Ebook, and it will appear in Adobe Reader.

Specialized Ebook reading 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, however they are extremely convenient and avid readers are very happy with them and can actually become addicted to them.  A book reader can be used easily on the couch, in bed, carried to the doctors office or other waiting area, and the battery life can be runs for DAY instead of hours, and it is much easier on the eyes versus a PC display.

Prominent examples include:

• Plastic Logic (2009 estimate)
• Kindle by Amazon (2007)
• Cybook Gen3 by Bookeen (2007)
• Hanlin eReader by Jinke (distributed as "Lbook" in Estonia, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine as "BeBook" in Europe) (2007)
• Sony Reader by Sony (2006)
• iLiad by iRex (2006)
• Librié by Sony (2004)

E-Books Advantages over Print Books

• Text can be searched automatically and cross-referenced using hyperlinks, making the e-book format ideal for works that benefit from such functions.
• E-books can allow non-permanent highlighting of books.
• Less physical space is required to store e-books, and hundreds or thousands of books may be stored on the same device.
• A single e-book reader containing several books is easier to carry around than several print books.
• Because they require little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no going out of print date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely.
• Readers who have difficulty reading printed books can benefit from the adjustment of text size and font face.
• Text-to-speech software can be used to convert e-books to audio books automatically.
• E-book devices allow reading in low light or even total darkness by means of a back light.
• An e-book can automatically open at the last read page.
• While an e-book reader costs more than one book, the electronic texts are generally cheaper.
• It is easier for authors to self-publish e-books.
• Ease of distributing e-texts means that they can be used to stimulate higher sales of printed copies of books.
• Although they require electricity to be read, the production of e-books does not consume the paper, ink, and other resources that are used to produce print books.
• 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 (although some e-book readers have only monochrome displays).
• Making a copy of an e-book file (for a sale) is easy.

Digital rights management

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. Users of Ebooks at FreeEbokEveryDay.com will not have to worry about this concern, as all rights to the Ebooks are owned by the company and our books do not "phone home".  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.

FLASH TO THE FUTURE:

Ebooks will rule!  The trend is definitive and shows use escalating, and the value of this web site alone should make you realize the VALUE of this medium!