As e-books and e-magazines are growing in popularity, the reading habits of people are fast changing all over the world. With the easy facility of downloading the e-books to iPads or Kindles, there is a marked shift towards the ‘democratization’ of e-reading.
The E-Book Revolution
The e-book revolution is sweeping over the entire new generation of youngsters, who are increasingly embracing the new digital technology. The older generation, though initially resistant, is not left far behind in adapting to the changes.
According to a recent survey, six percent of over-55 people own an e-book reader compared to five percent of those in the age group of 18-25 years. Out of those owning digital reading devices about 47% use Amazon’s Kindle, 31% have Apple’s iPad and just about 14% own Sony Reader.
So, it shows that age does not really matter. The factors that matter most are the convenience of use and the availability of an inexhaustible supply of good reads at the click of a button.
How free online magazine maker can help?
Certainly, e-books cost far less than their printed counterparts. You do not have to take into account the cost of paper, ink, and other accessories that go into the making of a printed book. Furthermore, you do not have to worry about the hassles of delivery and of warehouse space for storage.
By cutting down the printing costs the e-books can be inexpensively and instantly distributed to reach the precisely targeted niche audience anywhere in the world over the internet. The digital medium, thus, enables several lesser-known works in less prevalent languages and dialects to be distributed all across the globe.
Top Drawbacks of E-books
There are many people, though, who find the format of e-reading quite awkward, as it is far removed from the sensory and tangible experience of leafing through the pages of a printed book. The e-books do not give the same enjoyment that you find in touching, feeling, and flipping through the pages of a real book.
Furthermore, e-books still lag far behind in creating the visual experience of identifying the pages of reference works. They are harder to reference in electronic format on a tablet.
E-books make it convenient for students to access certain highly-priced textbook titles simultaneously on a 24/7 basis, the printed versions of many of which may be in short supply and may not be available on the campus library shelves. Moreover, the e-books make it possible to quickly search the required reference material by keywords – a facility not available in the printed versions of the textbooks. In spite of the huge benefits, the e-book culture has not yet fully reached the academic circles.
Overcoming the Limitations of the Digital Media
The solutions have already been found to some of the drawbacks of digital media. The page flipping software downloadable free from the internet makes good to some extent the lack of such capability in e-books and e-magazines. FlipHTML5 is freely downloadable software that enables you to create a FlipBook – a flippable version of the digital media.
Self-Publishing and Free Online Magazine Maker
Traditionally the supply and distribution chain of a book involved the author-agent-publisher-bookseller-consumer, which remained the same for nearly a century. But everything changed around the year 2005 and is still in a process of change.
Often the books are now bought by consumers online either in physical form or more often as e-books. Furthermore, digital media has caused a sudden spurt in self-publishing by the authors, which was once more of a vanity exercise.
Ordinary internet users do not need to know any programming language or skills to publish anything on the internet. Plenty of publishing platforms are available which makes such tasks as easy as the gentle breeze. PUB HTML5 is freely downloadable digital publishing software that enables individual users to create interactive books and magazines on hand-held devices like iPhones and iPads.
Digital Media and the Shortened Attention Span
One single way in which e-books have changed our reading habits is that they have shortened our attention spans. The youngsters, who are constantly on the move these days, mostly access books, magazines, and newspapers electronically on their smartphones. The smartphones, however, are usually crowded with a variety of applications such as messaging, movies, games, and music, each of which trying to grab the e-reader’s attention.
Thus, a reader’s attention is up for grabs and the ability to hook it in quickly is critical. The authors’ writing styles to have evolved to reflect this trend, bringing about immense changes in the way we discover and consume content. The lines between various forms of digital content constituting books, newspapers, and magazines have got blurred, one format encroaching into the other.
Sadly, we no longer enjoy the unique experience of reading the hard copies of some great books again and again, which made our imagination dwell on the individual pages of those books. Such lasting experiences are slowly dying with the onset of e-books.
That is why many literary experts opine that the digital revolution has definitely cahnged teh reading preferences however paper magazines are going to stay.
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