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How do you read an electronic book file? An electronic book reader is a small, portable computer designed for reading books stored in a digital format such as ASCII, PDF, HTML, or another similar format. (Currently the two most popular ebook formats are EPUB, a worldwide, open standard that evolved from an earlier standard called OEB (Open e-book) and widely used by Sony Readers and most other ebook readers, and AZW, a proprietary format developed by Amazon and currently readable only on its Kindle reader.) Books take up very little space when you store them in electronic format: you could easily fit 10,000 electronic copies of the Bible onto a single DVD. Most ebook readers can store hundreds or even thousands of titles at a time and some have Wi-Fi Internet connections so you can download more books whenever you wish. The most important part of an e-book reader is the screen. The first e-books used small versions of LCD laptop screens which have a resolution (sharpness) of about 35 pixels per cm (90 pixels per inch). You could easily see the dots making up the letters and it was quite tiring to read for more than a few minutes at a time. The latest e-books use an entirely different technology called E Ink. Instead of using LCD displays, they show words and letters using tiny, black and white, plastic granules that move about inside microscopic, spherical capsules under precise electronic control. Displays like this have about twice the resolution of ordinary computer screens, are clearly visible in sunlight, and use much less power. In fact, they're almost as sharp and easy to read as printed paper. The lack of books in electronic format is one of the things that puts people off using e-book readers—and that's what makes Amazon.com's new Kindle reader such an exciting development. Amazon already works with virtually all the world's publishers as a bookseller, so it's been able to make huge numbers of titles available for Kindle in electronic format—over 88,000 books were available on the launch date. That's certainly what people want and expect from an e-boo

All these products are broadly similar: they're all light, portable, and handheld and they all have large internal flash memories that hold hundreds of books. Some have touchscreens; others (like the Kindles) have miniature keyboards. Some have wireless connections for downloading more books; others (such as the Sony Readers) have to be connected to a computer with a USB cable. If you connect with a cable, running an ebook reader is rather like running an iPod or MP3 player: typically you maintain a library on your PC with a piece of software similar to iTunes, to which you add and remove books and other documents. When you plug in your reader, it synchronizes its internal memory with the library on your PC, adding any new books and deleting any unwanted ones. If you have a wireless reader, you maintain your library on the reader itself, adding and removing books directly. So... wireless or cable? It's not a big issue, I don't think: you'll probably be downloading books relatively infrequently. Photo: Horses for courses: The Sony Reader has a much smaller page size than a typical hardbook book. That's great if you want to carry your reader in your jacket pocket or your handbag so you can read while you're travelling. It's much less attractive if you do most of your reading at home: the smaller the screen, the more often you'll need to turn the pages. This is one example of why it pays to think about how you're going to use an ebook reader before you buy it. The best and most expensive readers use extremely high-resolution E Ink screens that work better in daylight than at night (you'll need good indoor lighting or a clip-on light if you're planning to do most of your e-reading in the evenings); LCD-screen readers (such as the Elonex) have backlit screens that favor indoor use and (like computer screens) can be tricky to read in bright sunlight. E Ink apparently uses energy only when you turn the pages, so the Sony Reader can happily survive for about two weeks of very heavy use on a single charge of the batteries. That means it's also very environmentally friendly to read books or documents from a handheld ebook reader compared to reading them on a computer screen. Some ebook readers can cope with ebooks in all kinds of different formats. The Sony Reader, for example, lets you read Microsoft Word and PDF files, as well as standard formats such as EPUB. The PDF viewer is really neat, allowing you to rotate the screen or scroll documents column-by-column for easy reading. The Amazon Kindle doesn't currently support the EPUB format, but it does allow you to view other file formats such as PDF.

Where can you get ebooks from? Most books currently produced by publishers are copyrighted, which means you can expect to pay a fair price if you want to use them. Relatively few publishers have embraced ebooks so far, though there are some notable exceptions (including Penguin). Generally, it's relatively easy to find mass-market bestsellers in ebook format but much harder to find more specialized books and quality, literary fiction. Public domain classics are the easiest books to find in ebook format, largely thanks to the sterling and visionary work of Project Gutenberg. If you enjoy reading classic novels, buying an ebook reader is probably a no-brainer; if you're more a fan of 20th century literary fiction, you'll have a much harder time finding what you want in digital form. If you buy copyright ebooks from either Amazon or another outlet, you'll find they're protected by what's called DRM (digital rights management)—effectively a kind of encryption that prevents people from distributing pirate copies of books illegally. Amazon uses its own DRM system, while Sony (and others) use a system developed by Adobe called Adobe Digital Editions, which requires you to register your reader the first time you use it. DRM protection restricts what you can do with books you've bought, but it's not necessarily the drawback it seems. First, it's very much a necessity from a publisher's point of view: it's only because ebook readers like the Kindle have DRM protection built in that publishers are starting to take what they see as a major risk in making their books available in digital formats. Another advantage of DRM is that it allows libraries to lend people ebooks for limited periods of time. I'm delighted to find I can log in to my local library and download, for free, for periods of up to 14 days, a reasonable selection of a few hundred popular ebooks. Once the borrowing time has expired, the books delete themselves automatically from my reader!

2010 Amazon releases the Kindle DX International Edition worldwide. Bookeen reveals the Cybook Orizon at CES.[19] TurboSquid Magazine announces first magazine publication using Apple's iTunes LP format.[20] Apple releases the iPad with an e-book app called iBooks. Between its release in April 2010, to October, Apple has sold 7 million iPads. Kobo Inc. releases its Kobo eReader to be sold at Indigo/Chapters in Canada and Borders in the United States. Amazon.com reported that its e-book sales outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010.[15] Amazon releases the third generation kindle, available in 3G+Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi versions. Kobo Inc. releases an updated Kobo eReader which now includes Wi-Fi. Barnes & Noble releases the new NOOKcolor. Sony releases its second generation Daily Edition PRS-950. PocketBook expands its successful line of e-readers in the ever-growing market. Google launches Google eBooks

Drawbacks Ebook formats and file types continue to develop and change through time through advances and developments in technology or the introduction of new proprietary formats. While printed books remain readable for many years, e-books may need to be copied or converted to a new carrier or file type over time. PDF and epub are growing standards, but are not universal. The lack of a single universal standard could significantly affect the longevity of some works and their availability or readability in the future as a result of the format(s) used at the time of production.[26] Not all books are available as e-books. Paper books can be bought and wrapped for a present and a library of books can provide visual appeal, while the digital nature of e-books makes them non-visible or tangible. E-books cannot provide the physical feel of the cover, paper, and binding of the original printed work. An author who publishes a book often puts more into the work than simply the words on the pages. E-books may cause people "to do the grazing and quick reading that screens enable, rather than be by themselves with the author's ideas".[27] They may use the e-books simply for reference purposes rather than reading for pleasure and leisure.[28] Books with large pictures (such as children's books) or diagrams are more inconvenient for viewing and reading. A book will never turn off and would be unusable only if damaged or after many decades. The shelf life of a printed book exceeds that of an e-book reader, as over time the reader's battery will drain and require recharging. Additionally, "As in the case of microfilm, there is no guarantee that [electronic] copies will last. Bits become degraded over time. Documents may get lost in cyberspace...Hardware and software become extinct at a distressing rate." [29] E-book readers are more susceptible to damage from being dropped or hit than a print book. Due to faults in hardware or software, e-book readers may malfunction and data loss can occur. As with any piece of technology, the reader must be protected from the elements (such as extreme cold, heat, water, etc.), while print books are not susceptible to damage from electromagnetic pulses, surges, impacts, or extreme temperatures. The cost of an e-book reader far exceeds that of a single book, and e-books often cost the same as their print versions. Due to the high cost of the initial investment in some form of e-reader, e-books are cost prohibitive to much of the world's population. Furthermore, there is no used e-book market, so consumers will neither be able to recoup some of their costs by selling an unwanted title they have finished, nor will they be able to buy used copies at significant discounts, as they can now easily do with printed books. Because of the high-tech appeal of the e-reader, they are a greater target for theft than an individual print book. Along with the theft of the physical device, any e-books it contains also become stolen. E-books purchased from vendors like Amazon or Barnes & Noble.com are stored "in the cloud" on servers and "digital lockers" and have the benefit of being easily retrieved if an e-reading device is lost. Not all e-booksellers are cloud based; if an e-book is stolen, accidentally lost, or deleted, in the absence of a backup it may have to be repurchased. The screen resolutions of reading devices are currently lower than actual printed materials.[30] Because of proprietary formats or lack of file support, formatted e-books may be unusable on certain readers. Additionally, the reader's interaction with the reader may cause discomfort, for example glare on the screen or difficulty holding the device. Due to digital rights management, customers typically cannot resell or loan their e-books to other readers.[31] However, some Barnes & Noble e-books are lendable for two weeks via their 'LendMe' technology.[32] Additionally, the potential for piracy of e-books may make publishers and authors reluctant to distribute digitally.[33] E-book readers require various toxic substances to produce, are non-biodegradable, and the disposal of their batteries in particular raises environmental concerns. As technologies rapidly change and old devices become obsolete, there will be larger amounts of toxic wastes that are not easily biodegradable like paper. E-books and software can easily track data, times, usage, pages, and details about what one is reading and how often. Similar to this is the growing amount of data available through Google search engines, Facebook, and through data mining. For the first time in history it is now far easier to track and record what specific people might be reading. The notions of privacy, private writing, solitude, and personal reading are changing.

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.[34] 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. If the purchaser upgrades or replaces their devices eventually they may lose access to their purchase. Some forms of digital rights management depend on the existence of online services to authenticate the purchasers. When the company that provides the service goes out of business or decides to stop providing the service, the purchaser will no longer be able to access the e-book. As with digital rights management in other media, e-books are more like rental or leasing than purchase. The restricted book comes with a number of restrictions, and eventually access to the purchase can be removed by a number of different parties involved. These include the publisher of the book, the provider of the DRM scheme, and the publisher of the reader software. These are all things that are significantly different from the realm of experiences anyone has had with a physical copy of the book.

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 book scanners, having the technology to quickly scan books without damaging the original print edition. Scanning a book produces a set of image files, which may additionally be converted into text format by an OCR program.[35] 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. It is even possible to release an e-book chapter by chapter as each chapter is written. This is useful in fields such as information technology where topics can change quickly in the months that it takes to write a typical book (See: Realtime Publishers). It is also possible to convert an electronic book to a printed book by print on demand. However these are exceptions as tradition dictates that a book be launched in the print format and later if the author wishes an electronic version is produced. As of 2010, there is no industry-wide e-book bestseller list, but various e-book vendors compile bestseller lists, such as those by Amazon Kindle Bestsellers[36] and Fictionwise.[37] There are two yearly awards for excellence in e-books—the EPIC eBook Award[38] (formerly EPPIE) given by EPIC, and the Dream Realm Award[39] for science fiction, fantasy and horror e-books. Both awards have been given since 2000.

e-Readers For more details on e-book readers, see Comparison of e-book readers. e-Readers may be specifically designed for that purpose, or intended for other purposes as well. The term is restricted to hardware devices and used to describe a category type. Specialized 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 multi-purpose devices such as laptops and PDAs. In 2010, competition sent the price for the most popular electronic reading devices below USD 200.[40] Research released in March 2011 indicated that e-books and e-book readers are actually more popular with the older generation than the younger generation in the UK. The survey carried out by Silver Poll found that around 6% of over 55s owned an e-book reader compared with just 5% of 18-24 year olds. [41] The survey also revealed that the Amazon Kindle is the most popular e-book reader in the UK (47%) followed by the Apple iPad (31%) and the Sony Reader (14%). It has been reported that there is a differing level of dissatisfaction amongst owners of different ebook readers due to poor availability of sought after ebook titles. A survey of the number of contemporary and popular titles available from ebook store, revealed that Amazon.com has the largest collection, over twice as large as Barnes and Noble, Sony Reader Store, Apple iBookstore and OverDrive, the public libraries lending system.

Credibility Credibility is very important to us entrepreneurs and we should always look for ways to get more. I believe that writing an eBook is one of the easiest things you could do to increase your credibility. As long as you write valuable and unique information, you’ll be known as an expert in no time. The important thing to remember about credibility is that it’s essential to the success of your business ventures. It is why people choose one consultant over another.

Exposure Many people see publishing an eBook as an easy way to express their thoughts, while others view it as a way to get in front of a huge audience: the whole world. Perhaps the best thing about publishing an eBook is the fact that you can share it with anyone at any time, no matter where they are. You don’t have to search for a publisher or deal with stores, you simply upload it to a site, promote it, and let the downloads begin.