William wants to know why anyone would want an eBook. “E-Books will take a ton of paper, ink, time to download, not to mention a good printer.”
William, let me address your concerns point-by-point here. You are absolutely correct in saying that it would take a ton of paper and ink to print out an eBook. That’s because eBooks aren’t meant to be printed. They are designed to be read on your PC, tablet or smartphone and remain completely paperless.
In fact, it’s darn near impossible to print some eBook formats such as a Kindle book, while others like PDFs are easier to print, but I still wouldn’t suggest that.
You may ask why people offer books in a digital format instead of a hard copy. There are many reason. The first is ease of distribution. eBooks are available with just a click or two and immediately sent to the reader.
It’s also considerably less expensive to format an eBook. Unless you’re already a publishing company with people in house that specialize in formatting hard copies of books for publications, you’d have to hire a formatter to get your print proofs ready to go. Printing is also very expensive, especially for longer instructional books with lots of pictures.
Unless your book has been picked up by a major publisher, you’re looking at a huge expense to print off copies. That’s one of the reasons college textbooks often cost hundreds of dollars. They’re a limited run and that costs a fortune.
Also, you have to pay to print off the copies and hope that you can sell all of them. With a digital format, you’re never stuck with hundreds of extra copies that you’ve paid for and can’t sell.
The advantage of eBooks is that they are cost-effective to distribute, you have an unlimited quantity of them to distribute without having to worry about getting stuck with extras. It’s also more convenient for the user. You don’t have to remember to take a heavy book with you and you can access it any time you want from multiple devices.
eBooks often cost less than hard copies of books (though this isn’t always the case with best-sellers.)
The other concern I wanted to address is the amount of time it takes to download an eBook. Even a large eBook with hundreds of color images (like our Windows 10 Guide) only takes a few seconds to download. It’s not a large file, really. Just about the size of two high-resolution photographs.
~ Cynthia
Cynthia So well put. I’m a Brit but am currently based in the sub tropics of Bolivia where it is very difficult to find good books written in English so I use amazon.co.uk for all my book needs.
I live in an Independent Living Facility. A studio apartment. There is no room for books. I have a Kindle and I am an avid reader. Many of the e-books I have, I get for free. Sometimes I rent a book and return it when I am finished.
Very informative article! I am an author and everything that the writer said above is true! I am trying to find avid readers that love good ebooks and stories!
All great points stated above. As an author I’m in full agreement. As an avid reader, one point that was touched on but can be emphasized more, I am in total awe of the fact that I have access to more books than I can possibly read, as well as old favorites, and I can read them anywhere, anytime, on my tablet or even my phone and almost always pick right up where I left off, even if changing devices. I use a Kindle Fire tablet and have the Kindle app or extension on all my devices including my laptops. I also use the Moonreader+ app on all my Android devices. It handles .epub files as well as many others that the Kindle may not. My laptops run Linux. I use the previously mentioned Kindle Cloud Reader extension on my browsers (Firefox and Chromium) and the Calibre software for everything non-Kindle. For iPhones, the Blue Reader app serves the same purpose as Moon reader does, along with, of course, the Kindle app. Best of all, everything mentioned above is free, except for the devices, of course. Even the majority of my books were free.
I have over 800 books on my kindles; I see not reason to print any on them – why would I? They are always available at a click.
One of the best features of devices like Kindle readers is that I can change font size and screen brightness. So many printed books have fonts that are so small they are hard to read. Adjustable brightness is wonderful because I can read in a darkened room at night, turn down the brightness and not disturb others in the room since I don’t need a room light. Then later, when reading in a brighter locale, I can boost the brightness to enhance readability. I can also make the screen have a sepia background which is easier on the eyes. Can’t do any of these things with a printed book. Lastly, I currently have 58 books, several games and a browser on my Kindle and have used only a small percentage of my available space. It charges quickly.