With the efforts of authors and publishers in e-distribution, e-books occupy an increasingly important market position. The further development of e-books will guide a revolution in the publishing industry, as long as they pay attention to newspapers, television, and The report will show that 2000 is actually the year of e-books.
In the first half of 2000, the famous best-selling novelist Stephen King and the famous publishing house Random House landed on the e-book market.
The concept of e-books In simple terms, e-books are digital reading materials that you can read on desktop computers or laptops and on a dedicated high-capacity portable device. You can use these reading devices to connect to the Internet to download and publish new books. Supporters believe that e-books are a major advancement of human civilization; skeptics believe that consumers will never particularly favor e-books. Moreover, e-book reading devices are expensive, e-book publishing costs are comparable with paper media books, and printed paper media books are easy to read and carry these are the challenges faced by e-books.
In fact, the application of new technologies in history has caused the same arguments, with active adopters and stubborn rebels each time. Now, more and more traditional book publishers, as well as those in the field of professional publishing and financial publishing, are aware of the potential of digital publishing and are actively involved in adopting new technologies in this area to ensure that they are able to grow rapidly in this area. Occupy a certain market share. In fact, analysts believe that in the coming years, the market for e-books and other electronic document publishing markets will exceed $2 billion.
"Bullet" effect e-book developers are trying to promote economical and safe user-friendly digital materials that professionals and consumers are willing to accept. Their efforts are fruitful. Successively published e-books have been successful, such as Stephen King's "Flying on Bullets" and Mary Siggins's "Before I Said Goodbye" is a typical Example.
Among them, Stephen King is a prominent pioneer of the new publication. He has experimented with different distribution and payment modes under Internet conditions. His latest serial novel "Botany" is directly attached to his website.
However, as e-books have evolved from a novelty to a visible business, attention has shifted to issues such as software formats, copyright protection, or digital rights management. E-book content security and delivery tools are becoming more and more important. These tools include Adobe PDF Merchant and Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is bundled with Web Buy.
The rise of e-books Electronic books are not new. Voyager once published electronic versions of Jurassic Park and Alice's Roaming in the Eyes. Gutenberg Corporation launched a digital text download service as early as 1992. But they did not overcome some of the problems that occurred when reading text on the screen.
Today, some companies (such as Adobe, etc.) have matured their technology in this area. They hope to develop e-books into friendly and ubiquitous media like printed publications. Even Microsoft is involved in this competition and developed Reader 1.0, a dedicated e-book reader.
The most recent development in this area is Adobe CoolType, which dramatically improves the resolution of digital content screen displays. In the future, e-book users can enjoy clear, vivid fonts, and users' reading experience will be close to reading printed books. Feelings.
The development of e-book business of publishers and booksellers The technological advances in e-publishing have affected the distribution field. Some famous booksellers have begun to operate e-book business. Among them, book sellers represented by Banano Bookstore have already Great progress. In 1999, Barnes & Noble Bookstore announced that it will convert existing printed books into e-book format and set up departments in Mexico and Manila to conduct business in print book conversion.
Barnes & Noble Books also purchased a 49% stake in iUniverse.com, an internet company that runs on-demand printing businesses. The company’s publications database allows customers to get the new or outdated books they need within minutes. IUniverse.com's technology allows book sellers to operate a wider variety of books without having to worry about the cost of inventory and additional costs.
Time Warner also announced the start of business operations at iPulish.com in January 2001. The online publishing company aims to connect authors and readers in the digital publishing market. Reader users can download e-books from this site or submit books that need to be published in print or digital format. Time Warner also owns a considerable amount of shares of Bookface.com, which is also an online bookstore where e-books can be downloaded.
In January 2001, Random House’s new AtRandom Networks company will launch the first 20 novels, biographies, and self-help books that are available for on-demand printing or online reading. Random House also works with Xlibris.com to attract potential authors to publish their books online. The original books in the Xlibris online bookstore are still available, and users can get print or electronic formats through Borders.com.
How E-books Work Today in this Internet age, e-books, like other online media, can be downloaded directly to a PC or portable reader. The storage capacity of dedicated e-book readers varies, and it is absolutely fine to store just a few 500-page e-books. The display area of ​​the dedicated reader ranges from 5×7 inches to 8×11 inches, and the display area of ​​the PC has no such limitation.
Today, text file formats are mostly Adobe PDF or HTML and XML variants. Most e-book content is encrypted, and the use of certain technical standards to ensure that before the purchase can not be read, and after downloading the file copy, print and re-release operations and other restrictions.
Developers have always been concerned about copyright protection of digital materials to prevent others from infringing or unauthorized use. They have proposed digital copyright management and unified e-book content format recommendations to ensure the future healthy development of e-books.