14 DAY TRIAL // Although it may not appear so, the market of digital books is still recording an important growth, reflected in the figures their worldwide purchase cashes in. This determined Random House, Inc. (the world's largest English-language book publisher and a division of Bertelsmann AG, one of the most important media companies out there) to have a bigger number of digitized books.
Thousands of books will be added to an increasingly large collection of e-books, including digital versions for John Updike and Harlan Coben novels or a number of volumes from the children book series called "Magic Treehouse". This initiative will almost double the number of electronic books already owned by the company (8,000) in just a few months, bringing it to a milestone of 15,000 items. Interested buyers will be able to view excerpts from the books online, via Random House's Insight dedicated browser.
An e-book is the electronic format of a conventional book, available for reading on computers or dedicated devices. Although losing some of the aesthetics of regular reading, e-books still present a series of advantages over regular ones. Among the most important are: reading comfort (no need to keep the book open, text font and size can be adjusted, text-to speech software can play it as audio), cross-referencing, enhanced ergonomics and back-up, no aging issues, lighting independence, immediate availability and transfer, and less resources (paper, ink, etc.) used.
Associated Press reports that Markus Dohle, CEO at Random House, shared in a statement that "more people everyday are enjoying reading in the electronic format and Random House wants to extend our reach to them with more of our books," as MSNBC quotes. This affirmation is backed up by the company's vice president for digital operations, Matt Shatz, who states that their e-book sales have grown by a triple-digit percentage this year.