E-Book FAQs << Back to Home Page    a.) What is e-booksinprint.com®? A free service from Bowker's booksinprint.com® that allows direct searching on all e-books and on-demand titles in the Books In Print® Database.    b.) Why e-booksinprint.com? Bowker has always been the premiere supplier of bibliographic information to the library and publishing markets with such products as Books-in-Print™ and Children's Books in Print™. With the well received introduction of Booksinprint.com™ and UlrichsWeb.com™ to the internet in 2000, Bowker has now created e-booksinprint.com™ to provide electronic book bibliographic information to the public. With a comprehensive database of over 200,000 e-book and on-demand titles, Bowker will support the electronic publishing revolution by making this information available for no-charge at e-booksinprint.com™.    c.) What is an e-book? An e-book is a book or text converted into an electronic format rather than printed as a paperback or hardcover. Many, but not all, e-books are also available in hard copy. In addition to text, e-books may contain illustrations and other graphics, or features unique to their electronic format, such as music, sound effects, animation, hyperlinks, and supplementary materials.    d.) What is "on-demand?" "On-demand" is generally defined as: a book that is manufactured or printed as a single copy at the time a customer wants to buy it. Out of print titles can be revived and be readily able if they are maintained as on-demand.    e.) Where can I get bibliographic information about a specific e-book? Right here at e-booksinprint.com®. You can search for your e-book or on-demand title in a variety of ways including title, contributor, keyword and subject searches. e-booksinprint.com® provides comprehensive information on over 200, 000 e-book and on-demand titles. Get unbiased bibliographic data, prices, full-text reviews, and stock availability with a click of the mouse.    f.) Where can I find e-books? e-books and e-book devices may be available at your local library or bookstore or you can try an internet bookstore or visit a publisher's homepage. Go to our "links" page to find some of the best e-book and on-demand websites as selected by our Bowker editors. Visit our "tools" page for links to e-book hardware and software.    g.) How do I get started with e-books? You can start by purchasing and downloading books from websites, bookstores, or libraries, then "reading" them on the screen of your personal computer or hand-held personal reading device which mimics the look and feel of a real book.    h.) What formats are e-books available in? The texts of e-books are available in a variety of formats including HTML, Adobe (PDF), text files and proprietary formats meant to be read by a particular specialized reader. An e-book may be available either in a variety of formats or only in a single format.    i.) Where do I get a portable ebook reader or e-book software for my computer? Visit "e-Book Tools" right here at e-booksinprint.com® for links to some of the major e-book software and hardware suppliers.    j.) Do I have to pay for e-books? While some sites charge for e-books, others don't. There are plenty of sites that offer public domain titles at no charge. Visit Project Gutenburg for a comprehensive selection of public domain titles available at no cost. You can reach their website by clicking here.    k.) What is "public domain?" "Public domain" or "in the public domain" is defined as intellectual material no longer protected by copyright laws.    l.) Where can I read an e-book? You can read e-books right at your computer or with a hand-held e-book reading device you can read an e-book just about anywhere - on the beach, in a car, in bed and in the dark.    m.) Are current popular books available as e-books? Yes, besides current titles being available, many publishers offer content exclusive to electronic form. Stephen King published his serial story, The Plant, exclusively in e-book format in 2000.    n.) What are some of the advantages of an e-book? e-books have many advantages. With an internet connection an e-Book can be downloaded from a publisher or bookstore and you can begin reading immediately. Remember, the internet never closes! In addition, most e-books cost less than their print counterparts and most portable e-book readers have enough memory to store several books at once.    o.) What are some enhancements to reading that an e-book may provide? Besides making works almost instantaneously available, e-books may provide enhancements such as music, video, animation or sound effects to accompany a story or text and also include hyperlinks and one touch large print capability.    p.) What are some of the advantages of e-books and on-demand titles for authors? There are numerous advantages for writers, one being the instant availability of their work; with an e-book the title would never be sold out at stores selling the book which is something that happens to regular books. Additionally, an e-book offers a low cost alternative to printing books in massive quantities and e-book and on-demand technology easily helps an author return an out-of-print book to availability.    q.)Are there any awards for e-Books? There are a growing number of awards for e-books. One of the better-established ones is the Eppies, which are given to the best e-books in fifteen categories.    r.) What is an ISBN? The International Standard Book Number is a 10-digit number that uniquely identifies books and book-like products published internationally.    s.) Why do e-books need ISBNs? ISBN's are key to bookstore and library ordering and distinguish between authors with the same name and books with the same titles. ISBNs also distinguish between the various e-book formats. e-books and print books need ISBNs to be listed with a distributor or be available from bookstores.    t.) Where can I obtain an ISBN for my e-book? You can contact the International ISBN agency by clicking here. The U.S. agency address is: U.S. ISBN Agency 630 Central Avenue New Providence, NJ 07974 Tel: 877-310-7333 Fax: 908-219-0188 isbn-san@bowker.com    u.)What is the Electronic Book Exchange (EBX)? EBX is a standard being developed by the Electronic Book Exchange Working group (www.ebxwg.org) for the secure transmission of e-book content between content creators, publishers, and end users. The Working Group developing standards that should be common to all future digital rights management schemes.    v.) What is the Project Gutenberg? Project Gutenberg is a website that digitizes public domain works and makes them available to the public. The project contains everything from famous novels to obscure textbooks, all available completely free for anyone to download. Their mission statement reads: "The Project Gutenberg Philosophy is to make information, books and other materials available to the general public in forms a vast majority of the computers, programs and people can easily read, use, quote, and search." You can reach their website by clicking here.    w.) Can e-books help or improve libraries? There are many advantages for a library to have e-books. For instance, if a library has e-books, or partners with an e-book vendor, a patron can walk in, request titles, and, in minutes, walk out with those books checked out from that library. If the library offers their own e-book readers, the patron would return the reader when the title is due. If the patron has their own reader, the e-book would have an expiration date encrypted and the book would be erased when that date is reached, that way the book would never be overdue, there would be never be overdue fines to collect, and the book would not have to be shelved. Also, libraries can place their e-book titles on Web servers and the borrowing of e-book titles between libraries would be easily accomplished.    x.) What is PDF? PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format, which was developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. PDF is one of the most popular of the e-book formats due to its ease of use and wide variety of titles available. You will need the Adobe® Acrobat® 4.0 Reader software to view PDF files. You can find out more about Adobe® by clicking here.    y.)What is "encryption?" In the world of electronic publishing, encryption is the process of scrambling the text of a e-book so that it can only be read by someone with a matching decryption key. e-books are encrypted to prevent unauthorized distribution and copying of the content. The encryption key is normally provided upon purchase via a process that is normally invisible to the user.    z.) Will e-books replace printed books? While e-books are "the books of the future," we will probably always have printed books, but with the features that e-books offer, they do make a great alternative to traditional books.

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