Electronic books, or e-books, provide a new,
cool, environmentally-friendly, and inexpensive way to read.
Differing from their paper cousins only in the binding, e-books
are stored and used as computer files rather than as ink on
paper.
One
arena that might soon see the leap to e-book use is the classroom.
Students would take their handheld e-book readers to the electronic
bookstore, load their texts, carry the lot in their bookbag,
and not notice the extra weight of a dozen full-length texts.
E-books can be purchased directly on the Internet from hundreds
of publishers or retail e-bookstores. In either case, pay with
your credit or debit card, then download it directly as with
a free book, or wait for it to arrive as an e-mail attachment,
a disk or a CD.
E-books
can be viewed on a computer screen or using a book reader. About
the size of a large trade paperback, these handheld e-book readers
have high-resolution, easy-to-read screens, and a computer or
telephone connector to obtain files. Better yet, they have enough
memory to store many book files at once.
Few conventional bookstores carry e-books yet, but it's a simple
matter for a savvy person to find them. The best bet is an Internet
search engine, directory, or specialty information centre. There,
locate e-books by author, subject, genre, ISBN, or title. The
online versions of some giant bookstore chains also have searchable
e-book sections.
E-publishers and many of their authors have web pages. These
have further information, plot summaries, reviews, pictures,
and other good stuff. They usually provide several chapters
to read free so you can try-before-you-buy, just as in a paper
bookstore. If you read a book and like it, you could always
write a review and send it to the author. Maybe it'll get published
on the net with your name and web site attached.
A few big-name authors such as Stephen King, Anne Rice, Frederic
Forsyth, Diana Gabledon, and Colleen McCullough, as well as
some large paper houses like Simon and Schuster have already
put a toe in the e-book waters, and the field gets more crowded
all the time.
If you love paper books to death and just can't imagine reading
any other way, don't panic. So far, e-books are an alternative
to the traditional ones. They haven't replaced them ... yet.
However, you don't have to be much of a prophet to note that
since distributing books electronically is easier, faster, cheaper,
and offers greater variety, we should soon see a lot more of
them.
Some
promise to make the experience better than paper with multimedia
readers. Others produce audio versions where the author reads
it to you.
Ah,
indulgence.
Keep
in mind, you take the same chances buying an electronic book
as a paper one. Maybe you won't like it after all. But the majority
of electronic publishers screen their books carefully, insist
on professional editing, and publish only the best. If you read
an excerpt first and buy only from reputable publishers, you
won't often be disappointed.
Rick
Sutcliffe (www.arjay.bc.ca)
is a TWU professor, columnist, speaker, author, and futurist who
writes texts on computer programming, ethics in technology, and
Irish-flavoured Christian science fiction, the latter available
from Bookmice http://www.bookmice.com.
He coined the terms "Metalibrary" and "New Renaissance"
over two decades ago.
A
few more examples of e-publishers:
Bookmice:
www.Bookmice.com
Electric eBook: www.electricbookpublishing.com
Hard Shell Word Factory www.hardshell.com
MountainView www.whidbey.com/mountainview/
DiskUs www.diskuspublishing.com/
Bookstores:
eBookShoppe www.ebookshoppe.com
Barnes and Noble bn.bfast.com/
Powells www.powells.com/
Amazon www.amazon.com/
Reader manufacturers:
Franklin www.franklin.com/
Other
resources:
Project Gutenberg www.gutenberg.net/
Arjay Enterprises www.arjay.bc.ca
Information centre www.Ebookconnections.com
