E-books containing audio, video and/or live hyperlinks provide another avenue for reading pleasure.

So what's an E-Book?

Electronic books, or e-books, are books produced in computer file format and are read on all types of computers and/or the new handheld devices designed specifically for reading e-books. They have ‘covers,’ a title page, an ISBN, copyright notice, editor and publisher, manuscript content, often a blurb or two about the book, information about the author and cover artist, perhaps a review and often graphics within the body of the book itself.

E-Books at $3.50 to $10.00 a download are relatively inexpensive when compared to the cost of either paperback or hardbound volumes. And your new book can be delivered from the publisher immediately via download or email file attachment as well as being presented on diskette or CD-ROM which are sent by postal ‘snail’ mail or are sold in bookstores. A wide variety in formats including html, pdf, exe, lit, to name a few, are available. The downloads are meant to be viewed on your ‘regular’ computer both PC and laptop as well as any of the burgeoning market of ‘hand helds.’

Palm Gear, Palm Pilot and others are available at varying cost and will hold as many as 40 books at a time. One huge advantage is found in that a whole vacation’s worth of reading can be downloaded onto one small device. No lugging of a heavy suitcase filled with books onto airplane or train. No trying to fit the books into the trunk of your car amidst all the other ‘have to haves’ for a long motor trip. And no trying to decide which one or two at the most heavy paper book into your back pack for a tenting adventure. Just download your books onto your hand held and go! The hand held devices are self lighted and come equipped with long life batteries… making ‘reading in bed’ in your tent at night an easy matter. And, if you just have to have a paper copy; most times the purchaser is given the right to make one printed copy of a download.

One great advantage for Electronic formatting is the reduction in warehousing and shipping costs, both of which are added to the cost of your paper volumes, as well less room needed for home storage of your books. A drawer can hold many CD’s; diskettes take up a fraction of the room found in those shelves of ‘must be dusted’ and ‘must be protected from these fool cats’ hard bound volumes. Ebook presentation removes limits on number of pages or graphics and requirements for broad audience appeal.

E-Books provide a venue for writers and publishers alike to explore small niche markets and to step outside the mold to bring to their readers original aesthetic books, market size or print capabilities that are unlimited by genre lines. And, every genre imaginable is becoming available as an ebook. New and established authors are producing manuscripts for mysteries, fantasy, contemporary topics, methodology, children’s, horror, religious, the list is unlimited.

Where ebooks were first viewed as the not quite right step child produced by ‘upstart, wannabe ebook publishers’ by the ‘big book (read that PAPER) publishers, the ‘big book publishers’ too have begun jumping on the band wagon. Today the long established big names of publishing are beginning to offer ebook versions of many books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and others all carry a selection of ebook offerings. True, while most of the ebooks being offered by ‘the big guys’ are only those of well established writers, it is a beginning…. And is one that clearly indicates ebooks are here to stay.

At present many new authors are finding the oh so hard to break into world of publishing is now open to them through their acceptance by these ‘upstart’ epublishers. Many of these new writers are producing excellent work well worth the reading. Reading which would not be possible given the lists of rejections most new readers encounter when submitting their work to ‘the big guys.’

Some of the best epublishers I have found on the net include:

http://www.vangoachbooks.com accepting submissions and books for sale

http://www.electricebookpublishing.com . accepting submission and books for sale

http://www.avidpress.com not accepting submissions at this time, books for sale.

E-Books are not meant to take the place of paper books. When paper backs first appeared on the market they too were viewed with dismay, disgust and distrust. E books are meant to be another venue for our reading enjoyment and can become as common as their print kin folks, or as singular as the electronic medium itself. Ebooks containing audio, video and/or live hyperlinks provide another avenue for reading pleasure.