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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 convenience of the ebook, but don't, of course, have that nice book to put on the shelf. The choice is yours.

<strong>Having a look before you buy</strong>

You don't need to commit to an ebook before buying it. In fact you can read a substantial amount of it for free, much more than you'd get by flicking through a paper book in a shop. All main ebook systems come with a sample function. If you're uncertain, use it -- you may be surprised how big a chunk of the book you get (I know I was).

<strong>Free out of print books</strong>

Books have a limited copyright life, one determined by different sets of laws around the world. Lots of well-known works are now out of copyright. So you can download editions of Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne and many other authors for nothing. A great site to find these authors is <a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page" target="_blank">Project Gutenberg</a> which has been digitising out of print books for some time. You will also find inexpensive editions of classic books on Amazon and other stores. Often these are based on Gutenberg texts so you may want to use the original for free.

<strong>Unauthorised editions</strong>

The music industry was devastated by the proliferation of piracy of MP3 files shared freely across the internet. There are similar fears that the book business will be impacted in the same way by the growing amount of stolen copyright modern books now being placed online, often as money-making ventures for the criminals behind this trade. If you're thinking of getting some 'free' books this way please think again. People who love books don't steal them, because they know that in the end that practice will damage the livelihoods of people working in publishing, and their continuing ability to be able to afford to write. You could also