13 Reasons for An E-book

Haven’t we suffered from the burden of maintain our books and music for years, on the conventional platforms.

Thanks to YouTube we can now do away with our personal recording of music. The current trend is playing or even downloading music of our liking (from the millions of songs available on You Tube). We can share them with friends on Facebook or WhatsApp too. There is no need to be drowsed in the erstwhile withered Gramophone records, CDs, DVDs and Tapes.

The same applies to eBooks. Companies like Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Flipkart are here to help us in getting rid of paper libraries (from millions of books on these platforms). But, for the time being, we have to pay a little for them (from 1 USD to about Rs 100). Constant downloads and promotions from these sites will probably change their business model. Even books will be available for free (I hope).

So, are you ready for the eBook revolution?

Get rid of your books, unless you want to adorn them on the bookshelves that no one really looks at. They provide a good sight as long as dust doesn’t cover their covers. Take a plunge and replace them with eBooks on your phones.

For a minute, for those who like the scent of old book pages, and the classical small fonts that publishers used for reducing the size of the books, and the fact that you want to feel them in your hands, I have no solution. But if you care for your eyes, the aging eyes, the inadequate ambient light and color, the solution offered is worthwhile and worth considering. Even handling of physically heavy books can be taken care by eBooks, while you toss around in your bed languishing for the evasive sleep.

Like I fool, for almost ten years, I recorded music on analogue and digital formats simultaneously, thinking I will lose the music fidelity if I record it on digital format. Analogue was considered better, even now the studios do it that way. But again, the studios too compromise on the digital sound processing equipment.

So, let’s talk about the eBooks revolution. Let us look at an example:

I replaced DRACULA authored by Bram Stoker which was withered, whose pages had come out of the binding and they were beginning to get scattered. Its font size was about 9 or may be even smaller, the pages had lost whiteness to yellowish, and the print was faded to grayish black not the readable like the bright black. In effect, I never read it again.

When I replaced it by an eBook at Rs 50, the book came absolutely new into my hands, with variable font sizes, color and background color.

So, learn the following:

1. The eBooks can be downloaded and they can lie on any hand-held device such as Android Phone, iPhone, Tablet, PC or even desktops. No need to buy the Kindle hardware, absolutely not.
2. After downloading from the internet, you can synchronize it on the device. The internet can then be switched off. It is no longer required.
3. The number of books that you can download, is limited only by the phone memory. In my case, it is 4GB + 132 GB on the Mi Max smartphone. The phone has 6 large inches of screen display, which is very comfortable to read.
4. The number of books I hold on this phone today is more than 200, much more than my personal paper book library. So many more could be downloaded. And high-resolution photographs too. If you still run short of the 132 GB space, which is unthinkable, Google Photos and Google drive can augment these numbers. And you pay nothing extra for these.
5. They give heavy discounts on school books.
6. To read the books, all that you need is the download of the Kindle application on your phone, or on your computer or any other android device. And all these books will become available on just a click.
7. You can group books by categories or subjects. Such as Classics, Literatures, Fiction, Travelogue, or anything you like. Like they do it in libraries. There is absolutely no limit to these categories.
8. The most important aspect is the font. The book opens on your device with a font size and font style that you are comfortable with. The fonts don’t remain fixed as on a paper-book, almost uncomfortable for at least one individual coming to the library. It can be from very small to extremely large, something unimaginable like ‘one word’ on the whole screen.
9. The background color that you select can be dark at night or any good color that you like in day time.
10. The book opens with a page turn over indication. It imitates the book-turning as if you are physically turning the books of a paper book.
11. The readability is excellent. If you are accustomed to read a book in reference ie looking at pages simultaneously, then eBook is the only option. You could jump from one page to another like we do it on HTML links, and then return to the original page.
12. On a click on any word of the book from any page, you could open the Wikipedia or Oxford Dictionary. It comes up in a flash, in seconds. It enhances your knowledge amazingly. So, no need to go for a dictionary at hand when you read a text.
13. You can highlight any word or a phrase in different colors and they remain available to you forever, thereafter. You could even edit those.

Millions of books you always wanted to read, become now available to you. You can fetch sleep not by pills but by reading your favorite book, available on just a click while you continue tossing around in bed. It is so very easy to carry the eBooks around, just your phone.

It’s the eBook and eMusic revolution. Be a part of it. All that you need is the willingness to experiment. And hardly any price.