Why EBooks Are so Unique

To understand why eBooks are so unique, let us compare them with their paper counterparts.

Firstly, publishing and distribution. For paper books, when an author turns out a book, he first finds a publisher. Now, unless he is an established author who has a publisher he has worked with before, he'll probably spend some time searching around before he finds a publisher who is willing to publish his work. Eventually, when he has found a publisher, the publisher expends quite a bit of money to publish the first few thousand copies and finds a bookstore or bookstores willing to expend shelf space to carry his work. Assuming sales are reasonably well, the bookstore will want to ship the books to other locations. Shipping costs are incurred in the process. And now people who want to buy the book will either have to find time to go down to the bookstore, which may or may not still have the book in stock, or fork out to have the book delivered to their doorstep.

What about eBooks? For eBooks, often, the author is the publisher and distributor or one of the distributors. Making a few thousand copies of the book is not required, at least not until you actually receive orders for a few thousand copies, and publishing costs in terms of both time and money for these copies are ridiculously low compared to paper books publishing. And for shipping and buying the book, it is as simple as offering a download on a website. The buyer won't have to leave the comfort of his home and he won't have to pay any additional shipping costs either.

So what does this actually translate to? For eBooks, due to the low cost of publishing and distribution, publishers are more willing to take risks than paper book publishers, where the high costs incurred even before the books actually hit the shelves mean that publishers have to have a certain degree of confidence that a book will actually sell well before they accept a piece of work. The end result is that eBook writers are far more likely to publish works with more unconventional writing styles (for fiction) and controversial and less widely accepted views and theories (for non-fiction)than paper books. This has proven to be both a boon and a bane. On the one hand, eBooks encourage the spread and development of new ideas and writing styles. On the other hand, they are also looked on as a easy way of making money by those whose main intent is to publish trash, aggressively market it, and make a quick buck before the word spreads that it's not worth buying. One is just as likely to find a rare gem of a piece of a work as one will find an awful piece. I have to say that overall, the gems seem to outnumber the trash, though I would still advise caution and not to take rave reviews posted on the website selling the book itself at face value.

Next, I'll compare storage and word-of-mouth advertisement. For paper books, most book lovers will usually have to exclaim this sooner or later ¡°I have no place for my books!¡±. You'll also very likely only own one copy of each book, and a disaster like encountering heavy rain while one is carrying it could very well mean that you now have zero copies left. If you really think it is a good book, while you might recommend it to your friends, they may or may not actually go and get a copy of it to read.

And for eBooks? Unless you're living in a castle or a mansion, you'll find that your computer can easily store far more than your house could. While eBooks are still susceptible to disasters like file corruption, you can easily make a spare copy of the book to prevent losing your only copy. And should you think it is a good book, you can just send it to your friends and have them read it for themselves rather than just taking your word for it. In theory, this means that should someone be given a choice between an eBook and a aper book, assuming he has no preference for either and the two books are roughly equal in standard, he'll opt to get the e-book simply because he does not have to worry whether he has enough space to stash another book. In reality though, people choose between the two not based on this, as they usually have some sort of emotional reason for having a preference for one or the other. Given these factors though, it is only a matter of time before e-books will outperform paper books.

And lastly, conversion. For converting a paper book to an e-book format, you'll need a scanner. For converting an e-book to paper format, you'll need a printer. Given the needs of an average household, they're far more likely to find an investment in a printer more worthwhile than a scanner and have one in the house. Synergy -wise, paper books lose out here. True, it costs more to convert an e-book to paper than for a paper book to be converted to an e-book, but it typically costs more to buy a paper book than an e-book, so the cost is offset.

And this is why eBooks are so unique.