An e-book (short for electronic book and also known as a digital book, ebook, and eBook) is “a portable electronic device used to download and read books or magazines that are in digital form.”^[1] Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of paper, parchment, or other various material, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf, and each side of a leaf is called a page. A book produced in electronic format is known as an electronic book, e-books can also be born digital. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book,"^[2] but e-books can and do exist without any print equivalent. E-books are usually read on dedicated hardware A personal computer is made up of multiple physical components of computer hardware, upon which can be installed an operating system and a multitude of software to perform the operator's desired functions devices known as e-Readers or e-book devices. Personal computers and some cell phones can also be used to read e-books.

History

Among the earliest general e-books were those in the Gutenberg Project Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as, started by Michael S. Hart Michael Stern Hart is an American best known as the founder of Project Gutenberg which makes electronic books freely available via the Internet. At least one version of each book is a plain text file that can be displayed on virtually any computer. Most of the early postings were typed in personally by himself. Today, the e-texts are produced ( in 1971. An early e-book implementation were the desktop prototypes for a proposed notebook computer, the Dynabook, in the 1970s at PARC, which would be a general-purpose portable personal computer, including reading books.^[3] Similar ideas were expressed at the same time by Paul Drucker.^{[citation needed]}

Early e-books were generally written for specialty areas and a limited audience, meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. The scope of the subject matter of these e-books included technical manuals for hardware, manufacturing techniques, and other subjects.^{[citation needed]} In the 1990s, the general availability of the Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and made transferring electronic files much easier, including e-books.

Numerous e-book formats emerged and proliferated, some supported by major software companies such as Adobe Adobe Systems Incorporated (NASDAQ: ADBE) is an American computer software company headquartered in San Jose, California, USA. The company has historically focused upon the creation of multimedia and creativity software products, with a more-recent foray towards rich Internet application software development with its PDF Portable Document Format is a generic computer term.[citation needed] The best-known PDF implementation is Adobe PDF, a file format created by Adobe Systems in 1993 for document exchange. The remainder of this article discusses Adobe PDF exclusively format, and others supported by independent and open-source programmers. Multiple readers followed multiple formats, most of them specializing in only one format, and thereby fragmenting the e-book market even more. Due to exclusiveness and limited readerships of e-books, the fractured market of independents and specialty authors lacked consensus regarding a standard for packaging and selling e-books. E-books continued to gain in their own underground markets. Many e-book publishers began distributing books that were in the public domain Works are in the public domain if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all, if the intellectual property rights have expired, and/or if the intellectual property rights are forfeited. Examples include the English language, the formulae of Newtonian physics, as well as the works of Shakespeare and the patents over powered flight. At the same time, authors with books that were not accepted by publishers offered their works online so they could be seen by others. Unofficial (and occasionally unauthorized) catalogs of books became available over the web, and sites devoted to e-books began disseminating information about e-books to the public.^{[citation needed]}

As of 2009^[update], new marketing models for e-books were being developed and dedicated reading hardware was produced. E-books (as opposed to ebook readers) have yet to achieve global distribution. In the United States, as of September 2009, the Amazon Amazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc., as of January 2010 Kindle Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com for the rendering and displaying of e-books and other digital media. Four hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2", "Kindle 3", and "Kindle DX" support this platform. Kindle software applications exist for Microsoft Windows, iOS, model and Sony Sony Corporation (TYO: 6758, NYSE: SNE), or commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate with revenue exceeding ¥ 7.730.0 trillion, or $78.88 billion U.S. (FY2008). Sony is one of the leading manufacturers of electronics,'s PRS-500 The Sony Reader is an e-book reader. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation that has 166 dpi resolution, eight levels of grayscale, is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation. The reader uses an iTunes Store-like interface to purchase were the dominant ereading devices ^[4]. By March 2010, some reported that the Barnes & Noble nook The Barnes & Noble Nook is an electronic book reader developed by Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The device was announced in the United States on 20 October 2009, and was released 30 November 2009 for US$259. The nook includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, a six inch E Ink display, and a separate, smaller may be selling more units than the Kindle^[5]. On January 27, 2010 Apple, Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and manufactures consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include Macintosh computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. Apple software includes the Mac OS X operating system; the iTunes media browser; the iLife launched a multi-function device called the iPad The iPad is a tablet computer designed and developed by Apple. It is particularly marketed as a platform for audio and visual media such as books, periodicals, movies, music, and games, as well as web content. At about 700 grams , its size and weight are between those of most contemporary smartphones and laptop computers. Apple released the iPad^[6] and announced agreements with five of the six largest publishers that would allow Apple to distribute e-books.^[7] However, many publishers and authors have not endorsed the concept of electronic publishing, citing issues with demand, piracy and proprietary devices.^[8]

In July 2010, online bookseller Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. is an American-based multinational electronic commerce company. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, it is America's largest online retailer, with nearly three times the Internet sales revenue of the runner up, Staples, Inc., as of January 2010 reported sales of ebooks for its proprietary Kindle Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com for the rendering and displaying of e-books and other digital media. Four hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2", a third generation device simply called the "Kindle", and "Kindle DX" support this platform. However, most outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010, saying it sold 140 e-books for every 100 hardcover books, including hardcovers for which there was no digital edition.^[9] In July this number had increased to 180 Kindle Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com for the rendering and displaying of e-books and other digital media. Four hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2", a third generation device simply called the "Kindle", and "Kindle DX" support this platform. However, most ebooks per 100 hardcovers ^[10]. Paperback book sales are still much larger than either hardcover or e-book; the American Publishing Association estimated e-books represented 8.5% of sales as of mid-2010.^[11]

Timeline

• 1971: Michael S. Hart Michael Stern Hart is an American best known as the founder of Project Gutenberg which makes electronic books freely available via the Internet. At least one version of each book is a plain text file that can be displayed on virtually any computer. Most of the early postings were typed in personally by himself. Today, the e-texts are produced ( launches the Gutenberg Project Project Gutenberg, abbreviated as PG, is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks." Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as.
• 1985-1992 Robert Stein starts Voyager Company The Voyager Company was a pioneer in CD-ROM production in the 1980s and early 1990s, and published The Criterion Collection, a pioneering home video collection of classic and important contemporary films on Laserdisc. It was founded in 1985 by four partners, Jon Turell, Bill Becker, Aleen Stein and Robert Stein. In 1994 the partnership was diluted Expanded Books and books on CD-ROMs.
• 1992: Charles Stack's Book Stacks Unlimited Book Stacks Unlimited was an online bookstore created by Charles Stack in 1992, two years before Jeff Bezos launched Amazon.com. Stack's store, selling new books, began as a dial-up bulletin board located in Cleveland. It moved to the Internet as Books.com, eventually attracting a half million visitors each month begins selling new physical books online.
• 1993: Zahur Klemath Zapata develops the first [1] software to read digital books. Digital book version 1 and the first digital book is published On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts (Thomas de Quincey Thomas de Quincey was an English author and intellectual, best known for his Confessions of an English Opium-Eater (1821)).
• 1993: Digital Book, Inc. offers the first 50 digital books in Floppy disk with Digital Book Format (DBF).
• 1993: Hugo Award for Best Novel The Hugo Award for best science fiction or fantasy novel is given each year for works published during the previous calendar year. A work of fiction is defined as a novel if it is 40,000 words or longer. The Hugo for Best Novel has been awarded annually since 1953 except in 1954 and 1957 nominee texts published on CD-ROM by Brad Templeton Brad Templeton , son of Charles Templeton and Sylvia Murphy, is a software architect, civil rights advocate and entrepreneur. He graduated from the University of Waterloo.
• 1993: Bibliobytes, a project of free digital books online in Internet The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and.
• 1995: Amazon starts to sell physical books in Internet.
• 1995: Online poet Alexis Kirke discusses the need for wireless internet electronic paper readers in his article "The Emuse".
• 1996: Project Gutenberg reaches 1,000 titles. The target is 1,000,000
• 1998 Kim Blagg obtained the first ISBN issued to an ebook and began marketing multimedia-enhanced ebooks on CDs through retailers including amazon.com, bn.com and borders.com. Shortly thereafter through her company "Books OnScreen" she introduced the ebooks at the Book Expo America in Chicago, IL to an impressed, but unconvinced bookseller audience.
• 1998: Launched the first ebook Readers: Rocket ebook and SoftBook SoftBook, "The Intelligent Reading System," was one of the first dedicated electronic book readers. It was released in 1998 by SoftBook Press, Inc. of Menlo Park, California.
• 1998: Cybook / Cybook Gen1 The Cybook Gen1 was originally made by the French company Cytale, which filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Two engineers of Cytale founded Bookeen and bought the rights to the Cybook. They completely remade the integrated OS & application, and then sold it as the Cybook Gen1 Sold and manufactured at first by Cytale (1998–2003) then by Bookeen In 2003 after the failure of Cytale two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bought the intellectual property of the Cytale reading device, the Cybook Gen1. They founded the company, Bookeen, to produce dedicated eBook reading devices. Their first product was the Cybook Gen1
• 1998-1999: Websites selling ebooks in English, like eReader.com and eReads.com.
• 1999: Baen Books opens up the Baen Free Library The Baen Free Library is a digital library of the science fiction and fantasy publishing house Baen Books where 112 full books can be downloaded free in a number of formats, without copy protection. It was founded in autumn 1999 by science fiction writer Eric Flint and publisher Jim Baen to determine whether the availability of books free of.
• 1999: Webscriptions Webscriptions is a web services company that has sold e-books without DRM since 1999. It is closely associated Jim Baen's Baen Books. Purchasers can download the same e-book in five different formats, even long after the initial purchase. The range is heavy on science fiction and fantasy starts selling unencrypted eBooks.
• 2000: Microsoft launches Microsoft Reader with ClearType technology.
• 2000: Stephen King offers his book "Riding the Bullet" in digital file; it can only be read on a computer.
• 2001: Todoebook.com, the first website selling ebooks in Spanish.
• 2002: Random House Random House, Inc. is the world's largest English language general trade book publisher. It has been owned since 1998 by the large German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films, and is currently developing a division and HarperCollins HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide CEO of HarperCollins is Brian Murray start to sell digital versions of their titles in English.
• 2005: Amazon buys Mobipocket Mobipocket SA is a French company incorporated in March 2000 which produces Mobipocket Reader software, an E-Book reader for some PDAs, phones and desktop operating systems. The Mobipocket software package is free and consists of various publishing and reading tools for PDA, Smartphones, cellular phones and e-book devices . An alpha release of the.
• 2005: Bookboon.com Bookboon.com is a website that provides users with free ebooks in various subjects. Currently two main areas are covered guide books and textbooks for bachelor's, master's and graduate students. It is owned and operated by Danish publishing house Ventus Publishing Aps is launched, allowing people to download free textbooks and travel guide eBooks
• 2006: Sony presents the Sony Reader The Sony Reader is an e-book reader manufactured by Sony. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation that has 166 dpi resolution, eight levels of grayscale (16 in the PRS-900 model), is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation. The reader with e-ink.
• 2006: LibreDigital launched BookBrowse as an online reader for publisher content.
• 2006: BooksOnBoard, the largest independent ebookstore, opens and sells ebooks and audiobooks in six different formats.
• 2007: Zahurk Technologies, Corp,launched the first^{[citation needed]} digital book library on Internet BibliotecaKlemath.com [2]', loslibrosditales.com [3]' and 『digitalbook.us'
• 2007: Amazon launches Kindle Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com for the rendering and displaying of e-books and other digital media. Four hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2", "Kindle 3", and "Kindle DX" support this platform. Kindle software applications exist for Microsoft Windows, iOS, in US.
• 2007: Bookeen In 2003 after the failure of Cytale two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bought the intellectual property of the Cytale reading device, the Cybook Gen1. They founded the company, Bookeen, to produce dedicated eBook reading devices. Their first product was the Cybook Gen1 launched Cybook Gen3 The Cybook Gen3 is an ultra-light reading device based on E Ink screen technology. Its screen possesses a paper-like high contrast appearance and is readable under direct sunlight. The device offers a battery lifetime of 8,000 page flips. The Cybook Gen3 reads many file formats and offers access to a wide range of digital documents. To a host in Europe.
• 2008: Adobe and Sony agreed to share their technologies (Reader and DRM).
• 2008: Sony sells the Sony Reader PRS-505 The Sony Reader is an e-book reader manufactured by Sony. It uses an electronic paper display developed by E Ink Corporation that has 166 dpi resolution, eight levels of grayscale (16 in the PRS-900 model), is viewable in direct sunlight, requires no power to maintain a static image, and is usable in portrait or landscape orientation. The reader in UK and France
• 2008: BooksOnBoard is first to sell ebooks for iPhones.
• 2009: myebook.com launches as a free ebook creation and publishing platform for media rich ebooks.[4]
• 2009: Bookeen In 2003 after the failure of Cytale two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bought the intellectual property of the Cytale reading device, the Cybook Gen1. They founded the company, Bookeen, to produce dedicated eBook reading devices. Their first product was the Cybook Gen1 releases the Cybook Opus Cybook Opus is a 5 inch e-Reader, specially designed for reading e-Books and e-News. It is produced by the French company Bookeen in the US and in Europe.
• 2009: Sony releases the Reader Pocket Edition and Reader Touch Edition
• 2009: Amazon releases the Kindle 2 Amazon Kindle is a software and hardware platform developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 for reading e-books and other digital media. Three hardware devices, known as "Kindle", "Kindle 2," and "Kindle DX" support this platform, as does an iPhone application called "Kindle for iPhone". The first device was.
• 2009: Amazon releases the Kindle DX in the US.
• 2009: Barnes & Noble releases the Nook The Barnes & Noble Nook is an electronic book reader developed by Barnes & Noble, based on the Android platform. The device was announced in the United States on 20 October 2009, and was released 30 November 2009 for US$259. The nook includes Wi-Fi and AT&T 3G wireless connectivity, a six inch E Ink display, and a separate, smaller in the US.
• 2009: Bookboon.com Bookboon.com is a website that provides users with free ebooks in various subjects. Currently two main areas are covered guide books and textbooks for bachelor's, master's and graduate students. It is owned and operated by Danish publishing house Ventus Publishing Aps achieves over 10 Million downloads in one year — placing the company as the world's largest publisher of free eBooks
• 2010: Amazon releases the Kindle DX International Edition worldwide.
• 2010: Bookeen In 2003 after the failure of Cytale two former engineers of Cytale, Laurent Picard and Michaël Dahan, bought the intellectual property of the Cytale reading device, the Cybook Gen1. They founded the company, Bookeen, to produce dedicated eBook reading devices. Their first product was the Cybook Gen1 reveals the Cybook Orizon at CES.^[12]
• 2010: TurboSquid Magazine announces first magazine publication using Apple's iTunes LP format.^[13]
• 2010: Apple releases the iPad The iPad is a tablet computer designed and developed by Apple. It is particularly marketed as a platform for audio and visual media such as books, periodicals, movies, music, and games, as well as web content. At about 700 grams , its size and weight are between those of most contemporary smartphones and laptop computers. Apple released the iPad with an e-book app called iBooks iBooks is an e-book application by Apple Inc. It was announced in conjunction with the iPad on January 27, 2010, and was released for the iPhone and iPod Touch in mid-2010. At that time, it was described by Apple as being available only in the United States. Product information released in March 2010 continued to indicate that iBooks would only be. Since its release in April 2010, as of June, Apple has sold 2 million iPads.
• 2010: Kobo Inc. releases its Kobo eReader Kobo is a Canadian-based e-book reader. Unlike the Kindle 2, it has no built-in keyboard, but is smaller, lighter and cheaper. It is available in black or white colours. It has expandable memory via an SD card slot to be sold at Indigo Indigo Books & Music Inc. (stylized as !ndigo) is a Canadian retail bookstore chain. The company was founded in 1996 by CEO Heather Reisman, wife of Gerry Schwartz, majority owner and CEO of Onex Corporation/Chapters in Canada and Borders in the United States.
• 2010: Amazon.com reported that its e-book sales outnumbered sales of hardcover books for the first time ever during the second quarter of 2010.^[9]
• 2010: Amazon releases the third generation kindle, available in 3G+Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi versions

Formats

There is a variety of e-book formats used to create and publish e-books. A writer or publisher has many options when it comes to choosing a format for production. Every format has its proponents and champions, and debates over which format is best can become intense.

Comparison of e-books with printed books

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