As e-books demands are increasing, publishers in today's mass media market are facing fierce competition. It is not clear whether the growing availability of e-books will have a huge effect like Gutenberg did. However, there are some signs that e-books may have a huge impact on the society. On March 14, 2000, Stephen King released Riding the Bullet exclusively as an e-book and he sold over 40,000 copies on the first day. This shows that e-books are fast-selling.
E-books have many advantages and benefits over the traditional paper book. The e-book technology allows the reader to modify the e-book such as font, color, and size. E-book can provide entertainment for readers. For instance, the readers can hear the voices and sounds while reading e-book if sound card is installed on the computer or reader device. Some reader devices are smaller than a trade paperback which makes it easier to carry around or put it in the pockets. They can store more than fifty books available for them to read on the reader devices.
Unlike traditional paper book, e-books are very easy to acquire. When a customer orders a book online, she/he would have to wait for a few days to receive the hard copy book. However, when a customer orders e-book, she/he would have the book within a few minutes after purchasing it. E-books are cheaper than paper book. Also e-books give great benefit to nature environment.
It seems that e-book is an amazing thing to have in the future. It gives easy life for readers because it has many different special features. We could make any adjustment so that reading would be more enjoyable. I doubt that the publishing industry would go out of business but e-books are most likely to become very successful in the future.
Source: http://www.mindlikewater.com/ebook_catalog/what_are_ebooks.html