Eight Reasons to Read Ebooks

Our principal, John Mason, had his first printed book published in 1978, and up until 2007, had published over 60 printed books, but times have changed, and along with our staff at ACS Distance Education, he has now published around 100 ebooks. There are very good reasons for this change.

1. Getting a Book is Immediate
Ebooks can be purchased online and downloaded whenever and wherever you are.
You can borrow and download a book from a library on the other side of the world, in a flash.
You can give vouchers to e-books via the internet to friends or family, anywhere in the world, without the cost of freight or postal charges needed for a printed book.

2. Adaptability to Different Eyes
You can vary the size of text or images to suit your eyes. High quality photos can be enlarges so you can see every detail. You can alter the size of the text you are reading to suit your own eyesight.

3. Manageability
You can put all lots of books or periodicals on a small device; organise publications into different files as suits you; carry them all away from home if you travel, and you don't need an extra room built onto your house to accommodate a large library. Instead you might only need an extra hard drive.

4. More than a Printed Book
E book publishers can give the reader things with an e-book which they can't give in a printed book, for example:

• Photographs can be expensive to reproduce in print; hence, printed books sometimes don't include as much illustration as what the publisher and author might like. An e-book however can have many more photos, without causing a cost blow out for printing.
• Interactivity is possible. E books can have interactive indexes, videos, audios, and other interactive applications embedded into them; so the reader is able to click on things
• throughout the book, which will activate experiences that are simply impossible in a printed book.

5. Read Anywhere, Anytime
E-books are self illuminated and can be read anywhere, in bed, while traveling on a train or plane or in the dark. If you are reading beside someone who is sleeping, you don't make a noise by flipping pages. Carrying a reader or i-pad with a dozen novels is easy; but carrying a bag filled with a dozen novels is simply impractical.

6. Durability
Printed books can over time get damaged. In some conditions, they can deteriorate if humidity is high; or if they get attacked by insects. Printed photos can fade over the years if exposed to light. Electronic data can be backed up and maintained more efficiently, and potentially with less cost.
 
7. Up to Date Information
Information contained within an e-book can be changed and updated easier and faster than in a printed book. Publishers are able to produce new editions more often, because the cost of producing a new edition is less. This means that information may be more current in e-books than in printed books.

8. What is Available
Many books today are only available as e-books.

• Some very specialised topics might simply not attract enough buyers as a printed book, to be viable; but as an e-book, publishing it is viable.
• Old books that have gone out of print are often republished as an e-book, but republishing as a printed book may be uneconomical.
• New authors who cannot find a publisher to fund their work, are often publishing their work as e-books. Before e-books, that type of work would simply not have been published at all
  
  
  

Printed books have existed for hundreds of years, and many people still say they prefer a printed book. Whether this attitude is nostalgia or something more than that; the reality is that more people are using e-books; and as time moves on, more and more books are only available as e-books. If you avoid e-books completely; you will be limiting the choice of books available to you, whether as reference books, text books or reading for leisure.