Anyone browsing the Internet for information quickly encounters ebooks. Sometimes those electronic books are clearly identified by name and intent but other ebooks are so cleverly disguised that a reader may not even realize they are actually a book and not a web site or some other electronic document.
What exactly is an ebook? An ebook is simply an electronic book. Many ebooks today are found in pdf (or portable document format) but you can also find various word processing documents being used as ebooks as well as programs and text files that serve as ebooks. There are also some unique programs that create ebooks in a format specific to that program.
Ebooks (just like their print relatives) are documents containing words in a convenient package. Ebooks do also have the ability to secure or protect access, which means sometimes you can’t print an ebook or copy it while others can be copied and shared easily.
While many professional publishing companies now create electronic as well as traditional books, many ebooks are now created by individuals or small organizations. The readers who use ebooks are just as varied as those who create them. You can...