An E-book or electronic book is a book or a digitalized publication that has been made to be commercialized on the Internet, it is also the digital media equivalent of a conventional printed book. The term is ambiguous because it is referred not only to the individual work but also to the device created to develop the reading of such work.

Several devices can be used as an E-book, a PC, a PDA, a Laptop… and generally anything which has a screen and a memory. Among its advantages, we could mention the paper effect, (not proper illumination and high contrast), their low consume and the role they play as nature savers as less trees are being cut down.

According to Cory Doctorow, “it’s worth having a book. It’s worth having an E-book. It’s much better have them both“. Besides, electronic books are a better business to authors because the reward they receive is rather wretched. The future of the book isn’t purely digital, paper will be an important factor to take into account even though many genres of books are rapidly migrating to digital form. This makes me call into question the fact that Publishing Industry might have been suffering from this phenomenon called E-books since their services will probably be no longer needed in the future.

The future digital book will take us far beyond today’s printed books and Publishing Industry, in many different and sometimes unexpected directions, though our points of departure will inevitably be an important influence. Let us welcome the future and be open-minded.

Common reader device

Sources:

• http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_6/lynch/

• http://jamillan.com/doctorow.htm

• http://es.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Libro-e&oldid=12051692

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-book