eBooks

eBooks are a significant part of total book sales, but do not seem to be overtaking printed books, as seemed the case a few years ago. US sales for the year to June 2016: printed books $ 320 mil, eBooks $100 mil, downloaded Audio books $20 mil. eBooks are cheaper than printed books on average.

eBooks may well dominate text book sales in the near future.

The largest provider is Kindle from Amazon. A free app is available for the iPhone and iPad and eBooks are purchased from Amazon Kindle. Books are generally priced around $Au10-14. Apple sells eBooks via iBooks. The Public Library offers free eBooks via the Overdrive app.

eBooks can be shared among family members using the same Kindle account. They offer some advantages over print books such as Search, Notes and highlighting text, Bookmarks, word definitions.

eBooks can be read comfortably on a smart-phone as can be observed among commuters worldwide.