An eBook (electronic book) is a version of a book intended to be displayed by an eBook reader. As such, it is an ordinary computer data file that is most often obtained over the Internet. The popularity of eBooks has grown in recent years to the point that in 2011 Amazon announced that eBooks were outselling paperback books.
Generally speaking, an eBook reader is an electronic device specifically designed for reading eBooks. Dedicated devices, such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, have several advantages for book reading. They are highly portable, usually about the height and width of a paperback book and less than 1/2 inch thick.
Some readers use a special screen called E Ink. This screen is not an LCD. It doesn't flicker the way LCDs do, it has very high contrast, low glare, and best of all: it is truly daylight readable. A good E Ink display is very easy to read in direct sunlight but they can be difficult to read in low light. E Ink uses power to change pages, but otherwise, the power consumption is near zero. This enables E Ink readers to have very long battery life.
Dedicated reading devices are not the only method of reading eBooks. Applications to read eBooks are available for general purpose computers and portable devices such as smart phones and tablets.
In addition to making eBooks readable, recently released eBook readers can wirelessly access their “mother bookstore”—a place where you can search, browse, and purchase eBooks. Many eBooks are available for free, especially if their copyright has expired. And they do mean many—Amazon says they have 1.8 million free eBooks that are out–of–copyright. Wireless access may be available through WiFi (such as you might have in your home), or through a cellular network. When cellular networks are used, you can browse the bookstore and purchase books from almost anywhere. Even better, there is currently no charge to the customer for the cellular service. This means that from almost any location (in the U.S. at least), you can use your eBook reader to browse or search for books you want to read. When you find what you want, purchase and download the eBook file immediately. Buying and downloading the book takes only minutes. Amazon advertises “Books in 60 seconds.” This is one of the eBook reader's greatest strengths.
Whether you use a dedicated reader or not, eBooks have a couple of inherent advantages. First, after reading a book, you don't have to find shelf space to store it. You can even delete eBooks from your reader (to reduce clutter or save space). The bookstore will remember the books that you have purchased, and you can download them again later, at no additional expense. A second advantage of eBooks is that readers (dedicated or not) will allow you to choose the size of the font they use. Except for poorly formatted books, you should be able to find a font size that suits your reading preference.
There is a distinct disadvantage to eBooks. eBooks don't allow anything resembling typesetting. Publishers are reduced to making little more than suggestions about what the text should look like. The eBook reader does most of the layout, typically even choosing the font. Mostly, this is necessary. eBook readers have different screen sizes and users have different font size preferences, so publishers can't know in advance how much text will fit on a line or page. This means that in an eBook, there are no true page numbers. eBook technology is advancing rapidly, and some of the current limitations, like limited font choices, are likely to change.
eBook readers have many other features, such as the ability to read a book out loud, that may be of interest to you. I don't discuss most of them because my purpose is to assist people who may want to obtain an eBook reader to use with Living Bible Studies materials. Manufacturer product literature and product reviews do an adequate job of enumerating the many things you can do with an eBook reader. My goal is to go a little deeper than most reviewers on those issues that are likely to be of interest to the visitors of our site.
A publisher's control over eBook formatting is limited to a small subset of what can be done with web pages. It is not possible to create an eBook that looks any better than a web page, so better rendering is not a reason for Living Bible Studies to support eBooks. We do have plans to support eBooks and eBook readers however, for the convenience and usability benefits they provide to our patrons. In particular, I think the superior readability of E Ink and the get it anywhere availability provided by cellular wireless downloads make eBook support worthwhile.
Presently, we have upgraded our website to be more friendly to the browsers built into some readers. This allows you to access our website over the Internet using your dedicated eBook reader. From there you can access our regular content of printed Bible studies.
Our plans call for books to be published in paperback form and made available through bookstores. As we produce these books, we will also produce eBook editions. These editions will be available through as many sources as seems practical. Currently, we make the eBook editions available for purchase through some eBook readers' mother bookstore. The reason for doing this is to make obtaining eBooks easier for you. The disadvantage? The bookstore won't distribute our eBooks for free. Currently Amazon and Barnes & Noble impose a minimum list price of 0.99 USD for our eBooks sold through their stores. They also restrict us from offering the book elsewhere at a lower list price. We do not currently plan to charge a mandatory fee for material downloaded from our website. We will continue to look into this and adjust our distribution plans as the eBook market develops.