Friday, April 5, 2013

A-Z Challenge: E is for E-books.

I am a fan of the hard copy, whether it be paperback or hardback, but I cannot deny the influence e-books have on the world.  Even I read them.  I don't own an e-reader, but I have downloaded the Kindle App and Adobe Digital.  I know the benefits of e-reading.  You can carry so many books with you at one time, less clutter on the shelves.  OK, books aren't clutter, but you know what I mean!  There are so many free books out there it's crazy!  They may not be five star top ten New York Times best selling books, but they're good.  And they're free.  It's amazing this world we live in.

Ten Facts About E-Books/E-Readers:

  • 1949, Angela Ruiz, a teacher from Galicia, Spain, patented the first electronic book.
  • 1971, Michael S. Hart starts Project Gutenburg, a volunteer effort designed to digitize and archive cultural works, a way to encourage creation and distribution of e-books.
  • 1992, Sony launched Data Discman, an e-reader reading books off a CD.  It had little success outside Japan.
  • 1997, Joseph Jacobson co-founded E Ink Corporation, which is later used to develop such e-readers as the Sony Reader, Barnes & Noble Nook, and Amazon Kindle. 
  • 1998, Libraries started offering free e-books.  They were mostly technical or scholarly and could not be downloaded.
  • 2007, Amazon Kindle was released and sold out in five hours!
  • Current New York Times Best Selling fiction E-Book: Six Years by Harlen Coben.
  • Current New York times Best Selling non-fiction E-Book: Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg with Nell Scovell.
  • According to Goldman-Sachs as of 2010, Amazon owns 58% of the market share of e-book sales in the US! 
  • According to Ipsos Reid as of 2012, Kobo owns 46% of the market share of e-readers sold in Canada!

For more information check out these sites:
e-bookreaders.biz
Project Gutenburg
Wikipedia: Project Gutenburg
Wikipedia: Data Discman
Wikipedia: E-Book
Wikipedia: Amazon Kindle
Wikipedia: Nook
Wikipedia: E-Reader
ehow: E-Books History

Sites to get free and/or cheap e-books:
Free-ebooks.net
Project Gutenburg
The eBook Directory
Barnes and Noble: Free Nook Books
Amazon Kindle: Free eBooks Collection
dailylit.com
Scribd
ManyBooks.net
FeedBooks
Books In My Phone
BookBub
at 12:01 AM

7 comments:

  1. BethApril 5, 2013 at 10:54 AM

    Great post. New follower

    ReplyDelete
  2. TaMara SloanApril 5, 2013 at 1:46 PM

    I love curling up with a good book, but I love all the books I can put on my Kindle without taking up a lot of space in my house.

    TaMara
    Tales of a Pee Dee Mama

    ReplyDelete
  3. Masquerade CrewApril 7, 2013 at 8:00 AM

    Some of the earlier dates are pretty amazing. Few modern things have a strictly modern beginning. Thanks for sharing.

    This post is featured in my 1st recap post. Here's the link: http://masqueradecrew.blogspot.com/2013/04/some-great-posts-i-found-for.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. UnknownApril 11, 2013 at 4:30 PM

      I was surprised at how early ebooks came about. They most likely weren't in the form we're used to today, but still, it's amazing.

      Delete
  4. UnknownApril 7, 2013 at 9:58 PM

    Those facts are pretty incredible, especially the one about Kindle!

    Try replacing Captcha with Comment Moderation to receive more comments while keeping your blog secure.

    Damyanti @Daily(w)rite
    Co-host, A to Z Challenge 2013

    Twitter: @AprilA2Z
    #atozchallenge
    http://tagboard.com/AtoZChallenge

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownAugust 7, 2018 at 6:02 AM

    Это новые знания, которые только что узнали о упомянутых

    проблемах.
    แทงบอลบนมือถือ

    ReplyDelete

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