The world is embracing the ebook at an astonishing pace. Most of us who write for a living welcome this. It means new opportunities for authors and readers alike. It means you can carry lots of books in a single, light device. With some systems you can do clever things such as sharing comments and even lending books to your friends.

Everyone who works in publishing -- as writers, editors, designers, in sales and marketing -- wants you to make the most of that new gadget, and to understand how it fits into the world of books. So this is an attempt to set down a few facts about this fast-changing medium.

<strong>Price</strong>

Ebook prices have been in flux, mainly due to the speed at which ereaders have taken off. There was a time when ebooks were sometimes more expensive than their print equivalent. This rarely happens now. If you look on Amazon you'll usually find they are slightly lower in price than the print book. Prices still usually follow the cycle of paper publishing. So the original ebook price will be based on the hardback cost, and will fall when the paperback comes out. To use my own work as an example, my current hardback, <em>The Fallen Angel,</em> costs £7.99 at Amazon UK and £7.19 for the Kindle edition. My current paperback, <em>The Blue Demon, </em>lists at £4.19 while the paperback is £3.98. So you save money and get the added convenienc