Search for an eBook Search for an eBook

Members Login Members Login

Username:
Password:
Register »

Useful Tools Useful Tools

Bookmark and Share

Lilly's View of the World Lilly's View of the World

"Friendship is a special kind of love"

(Anonymous)

What is an eBook

In computing, an e-book (for electronic book: also eBook, ebook) is the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. Such documents are either read on personal computers, or on dedicated hardware devices known as e-book devices or e-book readers.



Formats

A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a file format for production. While the average end-user might arguably simply want to read books, every format has its exponents and champions, and debates over "which format is best" can become intense. The formats that readingit.com adopts are as follows.

>> Adobe Portable Document Format

Published as a .pdf

A file format created by Adobe Systems, initially to provide a standard form for storing and editing printed publishable documents. Because documents in .pdf format can easily be seen and printed by users on a variety of computer and platform types, they are very common on the World Wide Web.

But since they are designed to reproduce page images, and the text cannot be re-flowed to fit the screen width, PDF files designed for printing on standard paper sizes are hard to view on screens with limited size or resolution.

PDF files are created mainly using Adobe Acrobat, but Acrobat Capture and other Adobe products also support their creation, as do third-party products such as PDFCreator, OpenOffice.org, and FOP. Acrobat Reader (now simply called Adobe Reader) is Adobe's product used to view PDF files. PDF files typically contain product manuals, brochures, magazine articles, or flyers as they can embed fonts, images, and other documents. A PDF file contains one or more page images, each of which you can zoom in on or out from. The PDF format can include interactive elements such as buttons for forms entry and for triggering sound and Quicktime or AVI movies. Acrobat PDF files are optimized for the Web by rendering text before graphic images and hypertext links. Adobe's PDF-like e-book format is incorporated into their reader.

>> Microsoft Reader

Published as an .lit

LIT files are only readable in the proprietary Microsoft Reader program, as the .LIT format, otherwise similar to Microsoft's CHM format, includes Digital Rights Management features.

There is however a tool, Convert Lit, which can convert .lit files to html files or OEBPS files.

The MS reader uses patented ClearType® display technology. In Reader navigation works with a keyboard, mouse, stylus, or through electronic bookmarks. The Catalogue Library records reader books in a personalized "home page", and books are displayed with ClearType to improve readability. A user can add annotations and notes to any page, create large-print e-books with a single command, or create free-form drawings on the reader pages. A built-in dictionary allows the user to look up words.



Advantages

Text can be searched automatically, and cross-referenced using hyperlinks. This makes e-books an excellent choice of format for works that benefit from search and cross-reference capabilities, such as dictionaries, reference works, certain kinds of textbooks.

Less physical space is required to store e-books. Hundreds (or thousands) may be carried together on one device. Approximately 500 average e-books can be stored on one CD (equivalent to several shelves' worth of print books). Because they take up little space, e-books can be offered indefinitely, with no 'out of print' date, allowing authors to continue to earn royalties indefinitely (copyright law permitting), and allowing readers to find older works by favorite authors.

Readers who have difficulty reading conventional books can benefit from the adjustment of text size and font face. Text-to-speech software can be used to automatically convert e-books to spoken books. In addition, e-books may be read in low light or even total darkness, with a back-lit device.

It costs nothing to replicate an e-book. Copies can be made instantly and in as great a quantity as desired. This makes it easy to retain backups, and means that it is difficult to eliminate works once they have been distributed. e-books can be published by independent publishing houses, which can mean greater editorial and authorial freedom and more room for experimentation. From the publisher's point of view, the ease of distributing e-books means that they can be used to stimulate higher sales of printed copies of books.

With Internet access becoming ubiquitous in industrial nations, the ease of distributing e-books is a considerable advantage. e-books cost nothing to transfer, and such an operation occurs instantly. Readers can begin reading at once, without the need to visit a bookstore.

Errors in texts may be easily and quickly corrected, and may even be pushed to users to update their copies of works in-place, rather than requiring a separate errata.

No environmental resources are consumed by e-book replication, cutting down on paper and ink production. Nor do e-books require to be replaced through wear and tear; there is no risk of damage, vandalism or degration on the pages.



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 scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces an image file, which must then be converted into text format by an OCRprogram.

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. Usually, it is possible to convert electronic book to a printed book by short-run printing.

E-book publishing as its own industry is growing in the double digits yearly, according to the quarterly reports put out by IDPF. 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. 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).

Since the late 1990s, the many newcomers to e-book publishing have included most major print publishers. At the same time, many established e-publishers started to offer print versions of some of their titles. Thus the line between the two is fast blurring.