A new medium to read books for the new millennium: eBooks. They require no paper, no costly returns from bookstores, and take up little room on your bookshelf. You can take them to the beach, the doctor's office, and read them in the car or in bed at night without a light disturbing your significant others. Finished one book, open another. You can carry often ten books and up on your reader. Don't have one? You can easily read from your computer or laptop as well.

       Don't think you can curl up to an eBook? Sure you can. With the invention of these handheld readers, you can take an eBook anywhere you would take a paperback. these portable readers are getting affordable so that almost anyone who wants tons of reading at their fingertips can buy one.

        Reading hard on your eyes? Can’t see as well as you use to? No problem, with the touch of the screen on most readers and the computer, the font doubles in size. The glare of the computer strains your eyes? With these readers, you won't have that problem. These screens are mush easier on the tired eyes.

What do they look like you ask? Meet several of the readers and PDAs of the market:

eBookwise 

Hiebook

Treo 

Sony Clie

iPac

Palm

Franklin EBM-901 eBookman
as listed at Amazon.com

REB 1100
as listed at Amazon.com

      Not to mention many of the other PDA and Palms on the market. These little machines can be equipped to read a variety of formats from Mobi Pocket, HTML, PDF, LIT, DOC, RTF, and many other formats. These readers have gone from outrageous prices to suddenly very affordable. Some of the PDAs will be slightly higher than the readers mentioned above due to the many other functions they perform. But you don't need an expensive one to read books from. You can start with the low end models priced around $100 or a bit more such as the eBookWise priced at $124.95 with a 64 MB SmartMedia card installed. That's a lot of books you can tote around for little money. Even cell phones are getting in on the technology. Read books right from your Smartphone. The time has never been more right than now to invest in the future and purchase a new way to read books.

     There are several ePublishers on the web. One of those, dedicated to putting out the best fiction, is Amber Quill Press. They not only put out some great fictional books, but have also entered the world of media non-fiction. Most of the ePublishers on the net have also gone to print on demand books or trade size paperbacks for those who still prefer paper. Type in electronic publishers into any search engine and find a huge host of publishers out there.

     Here are just a few of the publishers and bookstores available on the word wide web. There are many more quality ePublishers and bookstores on the net. Be sure to check them out.

     First is on the computer with an Acrobat Reader or MS Reader. Don’t have one on your computer? No problem. These programs are free downloads from the net. For Acrobat, which reads PDF files, you can go to: www.adobe.com . For MS Reader: http://www.microsoft.com/reader/

     The second way of reading them, is by opening the file (some can be purchased in two column formats) and print them right from your computer should you still want the paper format to read from.

     The third is the handheld readers, such as the ones I mentioned above like the EbookWise Reader, the Hiebook or handheld PDAs such as the Palms, Clies and also Smartphones. Many more readers are hitting the market soon.

 

     Just like the convenience of compact discs in the music industry, these books will last a lifetime if handled properly. The pages don’t get yellowed or tore over the span of time, and they can be read over and over again. Better yet, they take up very little space in your library or hard drive. Save them to disc so if your reader or computer has a glitch, you won't lose your library.

     Take one home today and start reading the way of the millennium. Discover new stories and new genres. Find new and upcoming best-selling authors and talent on a new medium.