Ebooks are an electronic way to read books. There's no paper, no binding. You can buy ebooks over the Internet from ebook publishers. Ebooks can be read on aKindle or a similar ebook reader. So what's the appeal of an ebook?
Ebooks appeal are two fold. First, there's no paper. Second, they are a quick way to purchase a book. The book downloads immediately to your computer or your ebook reader and you can begin to enjoy what you purchased over the Internet right away.
So what's happening in the world of ebooks? Amazon is releasing Kindle 2 on 24 February and it's going to have a new "controversial" feature - text to speech. What's text to speech? It's where the Kindle will read the text of the book out loud in a computerized voice.
The Author's Guild calls this a violation of copyright law since only an audio book has rights to read a book out loud. But do audio books have the only rights? That's what the Author's Guild claims. Amazon says this is different. This is a computer reading the book, not actors giving voice to a story. Amazon and a lot of the experts in the field think they have the law on their side, but if they go ahead with Kindle 2 then there might be a lawsuit from the Author's Guild.
So why buck the trend? Are ebooks the next BEST Thing?
There was unhappiness with CDs and the Internet when they first started out, too. A lot of the Author's Guild complaints stem from the fact that they don't want to open the gates to an area they can't control. Even the publishing houses are afraid of change. Revenues generated from ebooks wouldn't be channeled to the traditional publishing houses.
Think of it this way - if you self publish an ebook and offer a book through your website - you take 100% (or most of) the profit without having to go through the publishing gatekeepers.
Is that cool? Well - self publishing doesn't have a good rep. Sadly, most of what is self published is not up to par, suffering from editorial and proofreading mistakes. Self published books like "The Shack" are few and far between. Until self publishing gets a better reputation, ebooks (at least the self published ones) won't take off. The challenge: Most ebooks are self-published. Traditional publishers are afraid to go there - yet. That said, if they could jump on the techno bandwagon and start to offer ebooks, they might see their profits increase at a time when the traditional market is suffering right now.
If the publishing industry wants to be innovative in this publishing downturn ebooks might be an avenue to explore.
StephB is an author who can be found at http://sgcardin.tripod.com In her spare time she likes to read many books and a variety of different genres. StephB is an author at http://www.Writing.Com/ which is a site for Creative Writing.
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