Would you like to know something more about books?

E-book (short for electronic book) is a digital book equivalent of a conventional printed book, sometimes restricted with a digital system. An e-book, according to the Oxford Dictionary, is "an electronic version of a printed book which can be read on a personal computer or hand-held device designed specifically for this purpose".

Originally, such books were meant to be read only by small and devoted interest groups. Later e-books have gained in their own underground markets. Authors with books that were not accepted by publishers often offer their works online to be seen by others. Unofficial catalogs of books have become available over the web, and sites devoted to e-books have begun giving information about e-books. Nowadays there are e-book readers like Amazon which dominate the market.

Advantages of e-books are numerous. First of all, the availability. There are over 2 million free books available for download. An e-book can be offered indefinitely, without ever going "out of print". Secondly, the portability and the storage. In the space of a sized print book, an e-reader can contain thousands of e-books. Thirdly, language accessibility. E-book websites can translate books into many different languages, making them available to speakers of languages not covered by printed translations. In addition, the electronic texts are generally cheaper and often free of charge.

Compared to printed publishing, it is cheaper and easier for authors to self-publish e-books. An e-book can be purchased, downloaded and used immediately, while when one buys a book one has to go to a bookshop, or wait for a delivery.
With their advantages and disadvantegs, e-books are becoming more and more popular among readers. Maybe there will be a high raise of such products in ten years and we'll be talking about it again.