Umm ebooks

This is "me"

I’ve been thinking a lot about books just lately. I do buy books in hardcopy, they are very special books, lovingly cared for. Most of the books I buy, for work or just ‘cos I want a good story, are ebooks. These ebooks are books that have to be very portable, books I can put down anytime and pick up again whether I’m on a train or stopped for coffee. I have always read a lot but I think I probably read more now, simply because of ebooks. My phone goes with me everywhere and so my books do too. The end of 2010 saw a massive increase in the purchase of ebooks because of the success of the Kindle, and there is no indication that the rate of increase is slowing down. I’ve been looking at a few sites about ebooks and thought I’d share them with you.

I sometimes think that people have a conception of ebooks as just being like any other book but produced electronically. This isn’t so, publishers are working hard to produce books that have more interaction and more features than hardcopy books do. This graphic that I found on Tony Bates blog is a little old but it does provide a concise overview of ebooks. the graphic covers 2009-2010 but doesn’t appear to include the massive increase in ebooks at the end of 2010.

There has been some talk around for a while now that Apple has been working on digital publishing for the masses. This article on, “Ars Technica” looks at the latest Apple announcement and I can’t wait to see what follows. There are quite a few links worth following in this article and it provides an interesting read about this subject.

If you’re interested in ebooks, you will really like this Scoop.it site, Perspectives on ebooks. Smashing, just loads of stuff on ebooks, the technology, the publishers, effects on reading, just loads. Have a look, if you hate ebooks it might just change your mind, if you love them already you’ll find lots to interest you. Let me know how you get on 🙂