Print Books vs. eBooks

Printing Histroy Museum, Lyon, France

When Johannes Gutenberg manufactured his first printing press in 1450, he revolutionized the book, making books available to more than nobility, church, and the very wealthy. In addition to printing many copies at once, the printing press could use cheaper paper (instead of vellum) because the paper wasn't destroyed by laborious and time consuming hand printing process. While the next 550+ years saw vast improvements in book printing, from fixed type to moveable type to digital printing, the book was still printed on paper. Even though paper may seem like a temporary medium, books that were printed on the first Gutenberg press are still around today. Paper has proven to be remarkably permanent. 

Although the first portable ebook readers became available in 1998, they didn't seriously challenge the print book until 2006 when Sony coupled its portable ebook device with an online ebook store. Amazon followed in 2007 with their Kindle™ and e-ink technology. From that point, sales in ebooks have really ramped up where there are more outlets where you can buy ebooks, including Google Books, Barnes and Noble, iTunes, Kobo, etc.

I have to admit that I'm on the ebook bandwagon. Not only have I have bought many ebooks, but I have also published my books in as ebooks. Normally, ebooks are priced lower than print books. However, I hesitate to buy a reference book only in ebook format because they seem to be ephemeral. Paper is a proven medium—paper books that were printed over 500 years ago still exist. As much as I love the convenience and space saving qualities of ebooks, I'm not so sure be able to be able to access them even twenty years from today. 

And now for some fun, enjoy this YouTube video about when book technology changed from a scroll to a bound book:

References:
Public Domain Photograph from Wikimedia Commons
eBooks: 1998--The first ebook readers
EBook Readers History and Beyond

Where can I find this book?

We all know how to find a book that we'd like to read, either to buy or to borrow--right? Not exactly. Depending on where one lives, this can be a challenge to find even the more popular books, because of distribution considerations, further complicated by high shipping charges. This can even be the case with ebooks, as not all countries have access. When I first published This Time, I was thrilled to see it appear in all the Amazons. Still, for those who don't live in an "Amazon country" (Australia is an example), getting my book from Amazon meant paying exorbitant shipping fees. It was, in fact, fellow Ricardians (people interested in restoring Richard III's good name) who pointed me to alternative book distributors. So, here's a list of places, besides the usual suspects such as Amazon, to buy and find books no matter where you live.

Print Books:
Buy: Better World Books and The Book Depository
Find: Google Books (will also search libraries); AddAll; Bookfinder

eBooks:
Buy & Free: Smashwords; Digital Books; Project Gutenberg; Google Books; Internet Archive
Find: AddAll Ebooks

I'm sure this list is not comprehensive. If you know of other resources, please let us know.

And let us not forget about a great resource--the local library. Since I live in the USA, I do have ready access to Amazon, B&N, etc., but the cost of some research material can be quite high, so I relied on my library to obtain these books through the inter-library loan (ILL) system. ILL gave me access to books from public and university libraries from all over the US. I can't say enough good about the libraries and our librarians.