In my article How to Write and Sell EBooks, we learned how EBooks can be used to earn passive income from home. Somewhere in this series of articles, the question would have come to mind- What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ebooks?
In this article, I will present a fair evaluation of the pros and cons of ebooks. This will help you to determine what the market opinion is and whether you are likely to succeed in this business.
Understanding the Advantages and Disadvantages gives you a lever to grow your business. You promote the advantages while being prepared for the Disadvantages I advance. Knowledge is of utmost importance as you can only perceive your Customer in this online age.
Each age comes with New Reality and New Realities come with Advantages and Disadvantages to perceive. The same goes the case with Ebooks which is prominent for a decade and have grown exponentially in the recent past.
Disadvantages are also important to know in order to devise solutions. The solution might further technological innovation making life convenient yet different from today.
So, let us now get to the subject of understanding the Advantages and Disadvantages of ebooks.
Top Disadvantages of EBooks
Listing here the top 7 Disadvantages in an attempt to answer what are the top advantages and disadvantages of ebooks:
1. Quality of content may not be wholesome. This is more a perception due to the recent popularity of ebooks than a fact. Ebooks are serving the market What it is supposed to serve!
2. Increased screen time while health practitioners recommend getting away from it. This also means late nights and loss of sleep.
3. Piracy can be blatant as it is easy to copy content and modify it to claim your own.
4. Short reads gain popularity while epics take a back seat. This is a demotivator for true literature lovers.
5. Good literature has taken a back seat as ebooks have been taken over by everyone. This might be true for the time being but wait till literary geniuses start taking the ebook route!
6. Ebooks collections can not be a matter of pride of book collection as was with paper books.
7. The quality of writing requires little proofreading and hence ebooks do not promote the cause of good literature as is the case with traditional books.
Top Advantages of EBooks
The top 7 advantages of ebooks are:
1. Wide availability on your device. You need not venture out anywhere.
2. Browsing a wide variety of topics is given where you get much more choice than in a physical store.
3. Ebooks are most conveniently priced where you get a good value for money.
4. The best advantage of ebooks is the short reads which are complete in a short time. Thereby, it is matched to the interest span of the reader.
5. Anytime, anywhere content availability is one of the advantages of why ebooks came into existence. It is only away as far as your smartphone.
6. It has brought a wide number of Writers to the publishing Platform.
7. Almost instantaneous publishing of books online compared to the long lead time of traditional book publishing.
Why EBOOKS are Better for Students?
Ebooks are better for students due to their easy availability at a cheap price. This makes it convenient to assess content whenever they need to refer to relevant information.
The main factor promoting the popularity of ebooks among students is availability with a click. You get a sea-full of knowledge in this wired world!
The necessity to browse a number of references in the comfort of one’s desktop or even in bed scores far better than browsing hard copies of books in a bookstore or library.
Pocket money is worth spending on e-books rather than hard copies of books!
What are the Disadvantages of Using Books as a Source of Information?
Trusting the source of information is the biggest disadvantage of e-books. The Democratization of book publishing has made a beehive of Writers. All these Writers may not be authentic sources of information.
Traditionally, non-fiction Writers were Persona in their own sphere. Readers wanted a piece of their mind and not necessarily just the content. It mattered hugely who these Writers were. Anyone else writing the same content would not sell as much as these Celebrity Writers did!
The situation might be worse in Academic Writing. Opinions can be heavily biased as the e-books are written without any obligation on anyone.
Writing for entertainment definitely well-served by the e-book market. However, people will go through the writing only if the book is packaged well. The greatest challenge here would be to attractively package the ebook which throws entertaining writing on a back foot.
Conclusion on What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Ebooks
We have now discussed the various disadvantages and advantages of ebooks in the article.
To recap, the various disadvantages of ebooks are:
– Quality of content may not be wholesome.
– Increased screen time while health practitioners recommend getting away from it.
– Piracy can be blatant as it is easy to copy content and modify it to claim your own.
– Short reads gain popularity while epics take a back seat. This is a demotivator for true literature lovers.
– Good literature has taken a back seat as ebooks have been taken over by everyone.
– Ebooks collections can not be a matter of pride of book collection as was with paper books.
– The quality of writing requires little proofreading and hence ebooks do not promote the cause of good literature as is the case with traditional books.
And the various disadvantages of e-books are:
– Quality of content may not be wholesome.
– Increased screen time while health practitioners recommend getting away from it.
– Piracy can be blatant as it is easy to copy content and modify it to claim your own.
– Short reads gain popularity while epics take a back seat.
– Good literature has taken a back seat as ebooks have been taken over by everyone.
– Ebooks collections can not be a matter of pride of book collection as was with paper books.
– The quality of writing requires little proofreading and hence ebooks do not promote the cause of good literature as is the case with traditional books.
Given all the disadvantages though, e-books are here to stay. E-Books are the new reality of our age and much growth is foreseen in this sector.
Here is a video link discussing the Top Disadvantages of Ebooks. This will be interesting to the readers.
Do leave your comments on what you think as the advantages or disadvantages of e-books in your experience.
Thank You.
