The Era of E-Book

As the development of technologies and the changing trend of readers’ patterns, the era of e-books has inevitably and spontaneously emerged. In the first quarter of 2012, in United States, the usage of e-books has obtained US$282 million in sales, surpassing the usage of printed books which earned US$230 million, according to the Association of American Publishers (Yeoh, 2012).

Four months ago, Apple announced that their iTunes store is now available to Malaysia and 11 other Asian countries, which means that Apple users from these countries can purchase and download musics, movies and e-books online legally. Yeoh (2012) regards this as a good news to Malaysians as previously there is no websites which provide accessibility for Malaysians to purchase e-books.

As the growing usage of e-books, the publication of e-books leads to the new business model and new media ecosystem as well. Serbinis sees the industry of e-books as an ecosystem approach to a global business and a long-term investment as devices and gadgets are very user-friendly and the prices is going down gradually to meet the affordance of the public (Tagholm, 2012).

For the readers’ benefits, e-books can ease their burden on the inconvenience of bringing heavy and thick books from here to there. Gartenstein (2011) supports that e-books is environment friendly by saving trees and the earth as well as it does not need to print out any papers; and it does not need to waste any human resources and energy in delivering so it eventually save fuel.

Apart from this, Kelly (2010) suggests that the financial breakdown of e-books is better to both readers and authors. He illustrates that if a printed book cost $19.95, his royalty will be 5% to 10% of that price, about $1 to $2; but if an e-book cost $5, he will get $3.50. In this example, the money paid by the readers for an e-book is much cheaper while his royalty increases.

With these advantages, readers nowadays prefer e-books than printed books as it improves their reading experiences and makes their life better and more convenient.    

(338 words)

References:

Gartenstein, D 2011, ‘Advantages and Disadvantages of Electronic Books’, eHow, last viewed 8 November 2012, < http://www.ehow.com/list_6157579_advantages-disadvantages-electronic-books.html >

Kelly, J 2010, ‘Benefits of E-book Publishing’, The Kelly Letter, last viewed 8 November 2012, <http://jasonkelly.com/2010/07/benefits-of-e-book-publishing/> 

  

Tagholm, R 2012, ‘Be Flexible with E-book Pricing’, The Frankfurt Book Fair Blog, blog posting, 11 October 2012, last viewed 8 November 2012, <http://blog.book-fair.com/2012/10/11/be-flexible-with-e-book-pricing/>

Yeoh, O 2012, ‘The E-books Evolution’, Onn Yeoh: New Media Guy, last viewed 8 November 2012, <http://oonyeoh.squarespace.com/sun-column/2012/7/4/the-e-book-evolution.html>