Dr. Sudipta Kumar Ghosh

Just like most other opinionated arguments, ‘print book or e-book?’ is not a question, but a debate in the publishing industry. It is important to focus on the good and bad aspects of both formats before you decide in what way you would like to publish your book. However, people give a balanced consensus in favor of both formats. But since 2007, Kindle Reader has been in the market, so are e-books on several other digital platforms. It will be great to understand the potential benefits of e-book creation and distribution for an aspiring author, to understand the publishing market and its future.

Here are 7 Reasons why you should publish your book in the E-Book format-

1. Tool for Business Leaders– E-books can be a great tool of marketing for businessmen who want to develop a credibility for the presentation. Instead of brochures, e-books written on topics related to the industry serve as better sources to serve clients, the goals and objectives of the business. Since e-books are less expensive and time-consuming to produce and distribute, businessmen aggressively use it these days to cater their work to clients.
2. E-books Can Accommodate Any Length– For an author, it might be a cringy idea to squeeze your thoughts within word limit. However, it is common problem in the traditional publishing industry because the more pages published, the costlier is the book. So, publishers don’t want to go beyond a certain limit in terms of print book, especially if they themselves invest in your book. But e-books are quite flexible, it is normal to go beyond 90,000 or 1,00,000 words because it is a digital format, that doesn’t cost extra, because it doesn’t have a physical space.
3. E-books are Cost Efficient for Readers– E-books cost far less than print book, and readers prefer downloading e-books more these days because they want to pay less and get more content and knowledge. Just as they are cheap to produce for authors, it is cheap for readers to buy, hence e-books have larger chances of selling, a strong reason why you should publish your book as an e-book.
4. E-books Take up Less Space– Ebooks just take up a digital space which might be infinite, hence they are easier to carry and can be read from anywhere. No wonder, the future of reading lies with these ebooks.
5. E-books are Widely Available– An author’s primary objective is to get people read the published book. Since e-books are not restricted to an in-store space, they can be largely distributed with simple uploads on different platforms, with a minimal subscription charge. Hence ebooks gets huge viewership, large readers and unexpected citations.
6. Ebooks Can Have Other Digital Formats– Ebooks can be transformed to audiobooks too. Busy lifestyle urges people to listen to books on the go, while doing some other work, travelling or driving. Hectic lifestyle choices have made audiobooks very popular. It takes an extra cost to produce the narrations with a vocal artist, but ebooks are super easy to convert to audiofiles.
7. Fluidity of Ebooks– Earlier, a wise saying said that water or mud can be molded as desired. Same goes for e-books. Its fluid nature is beneficial in many ways. It is instantly delivered, that is when a reader purchases an ebook, he/she doesn’t have to wait for its delivery. The technology allows readers to select viewing layout; horizontally or vertically read ebooks are much more user-friendly. The size allows easier readability, so if you publish and print your own book in the said format, people will access it more, because its easy for them. E-books are also easily shareable, which means your friend can read it the same time as you do; one doesn’t need to wait upon finishing of another, like we do for hard copies of books.

Technological advances have changed the publishing market in upward spirals; ebook is just an example of that. Even though many conservationists still believe in the authenticity and feel of a print book, it is evident, that with reading devices like Kindle, tablets and smartphones, ebooks are not going anywhere, rather they are the future of publishing world.