eBooks Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

Your eBook Yesterday

The most popular definition of an eBook on the world wide web is

"An eBook is an electronic version of a traditional print book that can be read using a personal computer or by using an eBook reader."

This definition, while being the absolute truth, does not really do justice to everything that an eBook is or can be. Some of the different types of eBooks that were familiar to all of us were PDF, Mobi and MS Lit, in recent times the latter two have almost disappeared completely.

While PDF versions today are still one of the most popular eBook formats, advancements in technology and changes in consumer consumption habits have given birth to a much more evolved eBook and reading experience.

Your eBook Today

Today an eBook has grown in leaps and bounds over the PDF version. eBooks today host several features and supplements that provide readers with a far superior reading and learning experience. With the growth and popularity of dedicated reading devices such as the Amazon Kindle, the Sony eReader to the revolutionary convergent devices such as the the iPad by Apple, an eBook has taken on a much wider definition.

Each segment of publishing, be it Children’s publishing or Educational publishing, Professional & Scholarly, or Trade publishing, has certain unique reading and learning needs, and eBooks today can be customized to each segment making reading richer, more convenient and engaging.

Delving into Children’s Publishing, The Sesame Street eBooks or Disney Digital Editions are great examples of enhanced reader experiences in Children’s publishing. The advantages they provide to both the reader and publisher are innumerable.

The basic features of a children’s eBook or eBookreader are easy to understand, customized interface design options catering specifically to the target audience - Children.

In Children's publishing, the online reader has large sized icons that give the child easy control of the book. The colorful and visually engaging illustrations and text, animated and realistic page-turn effect make reading and learning fun, exciting and interactive.

Today eBooks and online readers targeted at children have several advanced features integrated into them. These include features such as text highlights and read-along, which helps children enhance their language skills and understanding. Parents or teachers can monitor as well as control what the child is viewing and much more through a control panel. Narration is made further exciting with the fusing of character voices, making learning that much more fun. Animation and video too can be integrated into the eBook, along with online interactive exercises or separate supplementary offline activities.

On the other end of the spectrum, the same can be said about Educational and Professional & Scholarly publishing. Industry leaders in publishing have deployed several digital strategies so as to provide robust and engaging content to their users.

The eBook Reader is again designed and customized to suit the specific target audience. It provides utilities similar to a print book such as text highlighting, bookmarking, and adding notes. Ancillary materials such as Image and Video embeds are packaged along with the eBook adding value to content. Along with this Image labeling, sharing of notes, internal and external hyperlinks, search within the eBook — all cater to information consumption patterns. Another very important advantage of eBooks over print editions is that updates to the eBook can be made automatically, helping push edits and errata instantly.

Besides this, Online and offline reader synchronization ensures that no information is lost when a reader views the same eBook offline. Having books on the cloud ensures that no matter what device the consumer uses, or from where he access his books, his work is saved and can be retrieved. Websites such as BookGlutton also enable social networking within the book allowing online conversation access to readers within a book. Users can even view statistics of the number of readers currently reading the book, thereby enabling them to share notes and opinions or have doubts or queries cleared instantly. This is especially useful in the STM segment, as a professional can share data and information.

Customized resources for instructors / professors such as Powerpoint presentations and additional information aid in the teaching process. Another key benefit of most Educational eBooks is the possible tie-ups with Learning Management Systems that can allow Students to take assessments and enable teachers to monitor student activity.

Your eBook Tomorrow

As technology changes, so will the eBook. With newer devices such as the Apple iPad landscaping the eBook space, the sole responsibility of creating sustainable and profitable products to cater to changing consumer needs and behaviors lies on the shoulders of the creators / marketeers of content. Publishers need to keep a constant watch on these technologies, and alter their business models to keep up with the evolution,  lest they be left behind in the digital race, with readers zooming towards the infinite finish line.