This month, New Holland Publishing, in conjunction with Booksite Digital, a division of Booksite Afrika, South Africa's largest book distributor, launched eBook Diva (www.ebookdiva.com). eBook Diva specialises in Romantic Fiction eBooks, which is by far the most popular category of eBooks.
Because of the digital nature of eBooks, publishers can now make reading a more interactive experience. And in addition to being a world-class eBook store, eBook Diva will create a free writers' community which will allow fans of the Romantic Fiction genre to create and share their own eBooks with a community of readers who will be able to comment on their work. Aspiring authors can even personalise their eBooks by choosing fonts and book covers, while retaining ownership of the copyright to their work, which will allow them to publish their work.
eBooks are a smart choice for the environment, and the ease and convenience that they offer make them a popular choice for many people. Today, an increasing number of people are accessing information from portable media devices such as eReaders, iPods, laptops and cell phones and eBooks are the perfect complement to these devices. Because most people carry these with them, they are now able to have their entire library available.
eBooks will probably never completely replace printed books, but the demand for eBooks exists and is growing rapidly. The International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) has announced that the US trade retail eBook sales to August 2009 are 120% up on last year YTD, compared to the sales of books in general, which are up only 3.6% for the year, as tracked by the Association of American Publishers (AAP).
Internationally, leading publishers including Random House, Harlequin Mills and Boon, Pan Macmillan, Penguin, Simon and Schuster and HarperCollins are investing heavily in the growing eBook market. And in South Africa, publishers are starting to put eBook strategies in place to meet the growing demand.
While eBooks can easily be purchased and read on a computer, dedicated devices called eReaders are quickly becoming more popular and affordable. These devices are usually the size of a slim paperback, can store thousands of eBooks, newspapers, magazines and other electronic documents. At the end of last year, two eBook Readers became available in South Africa (Amazon's Kindle, as well as Elonex eBook Reader 511EB). And just last month, the Foxit eSlick eBook Reader was also released in South Africa.
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