Ebooks, also called e-books and even digital books, are strongly rising in popularity. But where do you get them or buy them? What kinds of ebooks are there? What are their advantages? And what are the latest developments with respect to ebooks? You can read more about them here.

History of ebooks
Ebook is short for ‘electronic book’. Officially, an ebook is a digital text containing at least a page layout.  It may have escaped your notice, but the last few years have seen extremely rapid developments with respect to digitalisation of the world of books. Already in 1971, Micheal Hart, who claims to be the inventor of the ebook, started digitalising non-copyrighted books. At the moment, there are already hundreds of thousands of ebooks available, both paid for and copyright-free.

Ebook file formats
There are a number of important file formats that you should know:
•    ePub and PDF (Adobe DRM) = the current formats
•    MobiPocket (Mobipocket DRM)
Read more about file formats here.

Where can you download ebooks or buy ebooks?
As said before, hundreds of thousands of ebooks are available at the moment. But where do you get them and how does it work?
Today, you can buy ebooks on all reputable book sites: Bol.com, Selexyz, Eci, Bruna.

But I want to smell a book, feel it and keep it in my bookcase!
Of course,  the charm of a book will and must never be lost. Not everything needs to be digitalised and another thing is: the ereader is not meant to replace your bookcase: it is a complement!

Developments around ebooks
As said before, the supply of ebooks is currently running in the hundreds of thousands already, but it is still rising dramatically. The expectation, therefore, is that ebook prices, which at the moment are about 70% of the physical price, will go down. However, the problem is that physical books carry VAT at only 7% , whereas ebooks carry VAT at 19%.

Our expectations
We personally think that digitalisation of the world of books will open a new world, comparable to the world of music. We expect the following developments to take place:

• Books from the whole world will be within reach

• Beginning writers / amateur writers will be able to reach their audience better by publishing their work online

• Borrowing books from the library will be possible from your home, from your easy (reading) chair, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Other ebook advantages
Our expectations mentioned above are positive developments, but ebooks have even more advantages:

• Prices: The expectation is that prices will go down, even though ebooks are cheaper than physical books already.

• Environment: Just think of all those trees that will be saved if all those books are published digitally.

And what about all that printing work that you only read once and throw away after that: what a waste!

• Printing costs money: Are you serious? Yes, I am, but are you aware of the amount of euros spent on printing by most companies every year!? Transferring documents to your ereader does not cost any money.