In Inside Book Publishing, Clark and Phillips state that ‘Digitisation is the mega trend of the age’ (Clark and Phillips, 2014). This rise in digitisation of the publishing industry has been accelerating in the last two decades, but it is not the only industry in which this has happened. Every aspect of our lives have been digitised to an extent, for convenience. 

1971 saw Project Gutenburg and as the U.S. Declaration of Independence was digitised the first eBook entered existence. Unsurprisingly, not much else in terms of digitisation or eBooks occurred until 1998 in which the first eReaders were released, an ISBN was issued to an eBook for the first time, and U.S. libraries began supplying free eBooks. Again, progress past here was slow and it wasn’t until 2007 (almost 10 years later) that eBooks saw a significant boom in popularity. The driving force? Amazon released their kindle. 

I was lucky enough to receive a kindle the very next year. Odd choice of gift for an 8 year old, I admit, but I loved it. It felt so revolutionary, gone were the days of filling my carryon rucksack with books and dragging it across the airport because it was too heavy! Now, I had as many books as I wanted all in the size of one tiny lightweight book. Over the years my reading habits changed and I reverted to buying physical books and now my kindle sits in my childhood bedroom on a shelf, untouched except when my mum would use it to read on holiday. I actually picked it up again over lockdown, that was a trip down memory lane!

You’d be forgiven for forgetting about eBooks. It’s rare to see people reading eReaders now… until you realise that the device you are using to view this very post… has eReader capabilities. You can download the kindle app onto your smartphone right now. And honestly, if you’re a reader, why haven’t you already! 

eBooks are cheaper to buy, they’re accessible since users can usually adapt the text styles to suit them, and they’re the most sustainable form of publishing there is - as sad as it is true, books are not very good for the environment, at least not the way they’re produced now anyway. eBooks also offer convenience, there’s no need to make the journey to a bookstore to buy a book, or to wait for the book to be posted to you, you can simply download it instantly. 

Well… now I’m in the mood to read an eBook… I’ll just be off to go do that….

See you next time!

Works referenced:

Clark, G. and Phillips, A., 2014. Inside book publishing. 5th ed. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.