E-books

In the early 2000s, e-books became popular among consumers with the arrival of digital devices that could display text on small screens. E-books of popular titles were first offered to public library patrons, and print books became searchable on the web through Amazon and Google Books. Enhanced e-book reading began with the arrival of e-ink and e-readers. E-books have transformed the publishing industry, the retail market, and the reading experience.

E-books (electronic books), which are book-length works in digital format, are read on smartphones, tablet and desktop computers, and dedicated e-readers, which are portable electronic devices for reading digital books and other digital texts. Some e-books are first published as printed books; others are produced first or solely in digital format. More and more books are being produced as e-books only. All of these factors have changed how books are published, sold, and read.

Brief History

In the 1960s, computer scientists developed what were called hypertext editing and file retrieval systems, which involved document hyperlinking and graphics. These systems are considered by many to be the first e-books. In 1971, Michael S. Hart founded Project Gutenberg, the first digital library. Hart wanted to make literary works in the public domain (books without copyright restrictions) freely available through electronic means. Project Gutenberg has since remained one of the most popular websites for free e-books.

In 1992, Sony marketed a book reader that was available on computer discs. Book Stacks Unlimited, an online bookstore, was also created in 1992. Other online databases began to offer users thousands of free e-books and other digital texts.

In the mid-1990s, small publishers began to use the web as a marketing tool by making books available on the Internet. Libraries in the United States began offering specialized, technical e-books in 1998, but these e-books could not yet be downloaded by library patrons.

Widespread and incompatible e-reader formats were developed in the 1990s, but some consensus was reached in 1999 with the Open eBook (OEB) format, which was replaced by the electronic publication (EPUB) format in the mid-2000s. Several other e-book formats began to be used during the 2000s as well, including Mobipocket (MOBI, identical to Palm OS's PRC format), Amazon Kindle (AZW, which was identical to MOBI, and later KF8, also known as AZW3), Adobe's portable document format (PDF), plain text, and standard HTML.

The Industry Takes Off

In July 2000, Stephen King became the first best-selling author to publish an online-only work, the novella Riding the Bullet. (The story was later included in King's 2002 collection Everything's Eventual.) Authors have since followed King’s precedent-setting decision, publishing their own fiction and nonfiction works as e-books and spearheading what was then a nascent self-publishing industry.

The year 2001 saw the beginning of what became the largest e-book, Wikipedia, a web-based encyclopedia of millions of articles in dozens of languages. Wikipedia inspired a strong connection between e-books, digitization, and digital publishing, as well as the desire to build a universal digital library. This universal library grew during the decade, involving Google Books, Project Gutenberg, the Internet Archive, the Digital Public Library of America, and others.

The year 2003 is considered a turning point in the history of e-books, which at the time were read primarily in PDF format using Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Adobe’s reader was especially easy for the consumer to download, and it was free. As early as 2001, Adobe had partnered with Amazon to sell two thousand in-copyright books in digital format. In late 2003, Adobe opened an online bookstore.

Also in 2003, public and school libraries began to offer popular works in the e-book format, expanding availability from specialized books for select professions to popular novels for all patrons. With e-books, library holdings began to rise exponentially. The use of e-books by library patrons rose steadily, although many people remained unaware of their existence.

Cell phones, smartphones, and personal digital assistants (PDAs) of the time could display text, opening the door to widespread e-book consumption. The first use of e-ink technology in 2004 made small-text displays far more readable, leading to the development of popular e-readers such as Sony's Reader, Amazon's Kindle, and Barnes & Noble's Nook. The most popular e-readers of the decade included these three as well as the Kobo eReader and text viewers for iPhone, iPod Touch, Android, BlackBerry, and Palm OS.

In October 2003, Amazon launched its “Search inside the Book” feature. One year later, Google announced a collaboration with major publishers to share book excerpts online. Google then began a digitization (book scanning) project in collaboration with major libraries in late 2004. Originally called the Google Print Library Project, it was later named Google Books. The project was halted by Google in late 2005 in response to being sued for violation of copyright; the case was settled in November 2009, but Google Books remained controversial, especially among writers and publishers who believe Google retained too much control over copyrighted material.

In 2007, Amazon launched its first-generation Kindle, an e-reader that could also download e-books and other digital media through a wireless network. E-books were first sold through Apple’s iPhone in 2008, and Barnes & Noble announced its Nook e-reader in 2009.

In 2010, Apple launched the iPad, which combined the e-reader with a fully functional tablet computer operated via touchscreen. Though larger than most previous e-readers, the iPad was hugely commercially successful and led to the launch of competing products, such as Samsung's Galaxy line. In 2011, Amazon and Barnes & Noble launched the Kindle Fire and the Nook Tablet, respectively, adding touchscreen and computing functionality to their previously established lines of e-readers.

Publishing and Consumerism

Amazon has largely dominated the sale of e-books, as well as other companies such as Barnes & Noble and Apple. Numerous companies offer e-book self-publishing services, some associated with specific e-readers and some independent, for authors who decide not to have their works published through traditional means. The advent of e-books has allowed anyone with a computer to become a published author; indeed, it has allowed anyone to become a publisher. E-books thus spurred a new type of publishing industry. However, while this industry has led to success for a number of self-published authors, it has also allowed for the proliferation of books that may be poorly written—and, in the case of nonfiction or reference works, lack credibility—as the self-publishing process does not include traditional editors, unless the author hires one themselves. In addition, the online self-publishing industry has increased the reach of predatory self-publishing companies that charge authors unwarranted fees and fail to deliver services as advertised, a longtime concern among print self-publishers as well.

The ease with which e-books can be produced has had both positive and negative effects. E-books at first negatively affected the publishing industry; large, traditional book publishers were slow to catch on to the emergence of e-books in the early to mid-2000s, allowing online retailers such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble to capture the attention of consumers eager for new products and new experiences. Small Internet publishers also began to flourish. Although the traditional print publishing industry took longer to begin producing books in digital format, once they did, the practice spread rapidly, to the point where most newly published books are simultaneously released in both print and e-book format. The popularity of e-books is due largely to their portability, ease of availability, and inexpensiveness. They take up very little space, except on one’s digital device or in the cloud, and can be printed on demand if so desired. Consumers and industry experts have noted that purchasing an e-book is not the same as buying a print book in several ways. First, a print book has resale value, while e-books often cannot be transferred. Additionally, purchase of an e-book involves terms and conditions; if the author or publisher recalls the book, for example, it will disappear from e-reader devices. In 2009, Amazon famously recalled copies of two electronic books at the publisher's request. Both were by author George Orwell: 1984 and Animal Farm.

Although many e-books are self-published without being edited or proofread, often leaving typographical and factual errors intact, they remain popular. Many e-books can be purchased for a very small amount of money, and still others can be purchased for well below the typical cost of a hardcover. Along with the popularity of online retailers and mega-bookstores, e-books had an early role in the closing of many independent bookstores, which could not match the prices, variety, and availability of e-books.

In 2015, sales of e-books by traditional publishers declined; while many took this to mean that e-books themselves were becoming less popular, others suggested that it meant instead that traditional publishers were losing market share to these self-published authors, primarily on Amazon, who generally charge less than traditional publishers do for their books.

Despite fears that e-books would demolish sales of print, the latter have remained more popular overall in most countries. In the United States in 2023, 20 percent of the population was estimated to have purchased an e-book, while 30 percent bought a print book.

Impact

When Amazon first sold its Kindle in 2007, the company offered more than ninety thousand e-books in its Kindle store. More than one hundred of these e-books were on the New York Times Best Sellers list. In 2013, global e-book sales by all retailers reached nearly US$15 billion; by October 2014, Wikipedia contained more than 4.6 million unique articles. These numbers represented a new era in publishing, marketing, and reading.

E-books, although popular with consumers, retailers, and the new breed of publishers, present technological concerns involving issues of digital preservation, future compatibility, digital rights, transferability and copying, and alterability. Furthermore, e-books on Kindle and Apple’s iTunes, for example, are cloud based, meaning they are not located on the consumer’s digital device; instead, the seller maintains the product on its own computer servers. In effect, Amazon, Apple, and other e-book retailers redefined what it means to own a book. Publishers can alter their e-books at will, leading to multiple versions of the same work. Some have argued that alterability is good for publishing and for consumers, as e-books can be updated or revised when necessary to provide a better product for the consumer; however, not all such updates or revisions are welcomed by readers. E-books have even inspired online manifestos for the rights of e-book buyers and users, one of which calls for the right to “a proper cover,” “a Table of Contents,” and “proofreading,” elements that are mainstays of traditionally printed books.

Bibliography

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