Abstract

The ebook has established itself in recent years thanks to a confluence of factors. One is the innovations in information technology, which have produced more ergonomic and functional reading devices and changed the reading practices of an important sector of the population. Another is the increased number of titles offered, both general and specialized. In the sciences, these developments have found an increasingly important niche market because of the benefits that electronic publishing provides to improve scientific communication, wherein continuous updating and renewal are very important criteria. Ebooks have given rise to new business and publishing models that have generated a number of trends: open access, unbundling content and publishing on the web, interoperability, editing in the cloud, open proceses, continuous improvements, and the social systems that are integrated into ebook readers.

Abstract

Electronic books have renewed the traditional concept of the book, encouraging the socialization of reading and user participation while breaking the traditional pattern of publishing. The publishing companies have been adapting to the new context with new proposals, in which the content is of increasing importance. There is a struggle between large groups such as Amazon, Apple and Google  for the control of the market as it matures. These brands are internationalizing and in 2011 landed in several European and Latin American countries, maintaining their positions as direct competitors.

Abstract

Over the course of history, the book and its environment have been in permanent transformation, undergoing changes that have affected its format, textual arrangement, form of reading, and production and distribution systems, as well as its social consideration as an instrument for the transmission of knowledge. One of the greatest changes has taken place in the 21st century with the emergence of digital formats throughout the publishing value chain. If in previous eras the transformations had affected one or other of the mentioned elements, the digital revolution has impacted on all of them simultaneously, as it has modified the ways in which works are created, produced, distributed, and consumed. Also, it has introduced for the first time an element of intermediation between the reader and reading: the device, which, in its different varieties, implies an element of additional complexity. At the present time, and after almost two decades, we can see the advances and setbacks that have occurred on this journey; the achievements and shortcomings from the publishing point of view, in which a strengthening of the big companies can be appreciated; and the emergence of a system of self-publishing that represents a rupture with traditional systems. From the point of view of authorship, the value of the brand, of charisma and prestige, has been emphasised, while a movement of creation is taking place on the fringes of the system that renounces posterity and recognition in favour of visibility. This approach to authorship is also subject to the influx and influence of social networks with their positive effects, in the form of projection, and negative ones, in the form of new ways of censure. Finally, in terms of reading, there is an ambivalent route that runs between the paths of a very strong tradition, linked to the printed book, and digital reading, established from the point of view of practices, but in its more conservative and imitative side with respect to analogue formats; in the digital sphere, new proposals and more innovative initiatives which are attracting the attention of growing but still minority sectors of society are emerging. The digital environment is progressing and consolidating, but it has not yet taken advantage of all the potential that technological advances could provide.