If you’re looking for the advantages and disadvantages of eBooks, let me guess: you haven’t warmed up to eBooks just yet.Â
And you’re sitting on the fence about whether eBooks are worth buying for you.
You’re even sceptical about why eBooks should be better than books.
After all, you’ve been enjoying paper books all these years.Â
The same thought crossed my mind when eBooks started gaining popularity.Â
After so many years of reading printed books, eBooks just felt odd, even wrong.Â
It turned out I just hated change, as we often do after doing things a certain way for so long. Â
Once I made the switch to eBooks, though, there was no going back.Â
There are good reasons for it.
Below are the reasons: the advantages of eBooks I have experienced over the past years as an eBook convert and why I think eBooks are better than books. Â
What are the Advantages of eBooks?
1. eBooks are Easy to Carry Around
Whether you’re moving to a new place or popping into a local coffee shop, all you need is your electric reading device: your smartphone, tablet, iPad, laptop, or any other reading device.
It doesn’t matter whether a book contains 1,000 pages or 10,000 pages.
All of your books—hundreds and thousands of them—are nicely “stacked” in one tiny and slim place, which you can carry with you and read anywhere and anytime.
2. eBooks Save Shelving Space
Throughout your career, you’ll move several times.
You take your books with you because they’ve become your treasure. Relocate a few times. You soon feel the burden of the books you’ve accumulated over the years.
You’ll have to deal with them one way or another. I gave away most of the books in the end.
With eBooks, there is no more packing and unpacking. No more shelf space, and no more worrying about a small space to keep all your books.
3. eBooks are Bedroom Friendly
My bedroom is the cosiest place to read, so it’s natural to read every night.
And I love not having to hold a thick book with both hands or keep my bedside lamp on.
eBooks make reading more comfortable and relaxing than physical books.
4. eBooks Make You Read More and Faster
If you stumble upon a unique author you really like, it’s easy to read one eBook after another without moving much.
You download the next eBook in seconds and start reading it right away.
A traditional trip down to the bookstore, waiting in line, or, if ordered online, the wait time till it’s delivered, all this would’ve slowed down reading.
Now, the sheer speed and convenience of eBooks downloadable in seconds make it easy to binge read and make you a book addict.
eBooks make you read more and faster.
5. eBooks Offer Fresh Perspective
Every new experience is a chance to peek at the inner workings of our minds.
The moment the transition to an eBook is complete, you learn yet again how irrational your perspective can be.
Physical books have no real benefits over eBooks other than that we may love the smell of them and the sentiment we associate with them, which dies quickly after the transition.
Our preference for physical books isn’t out of practicality or functionality; it’s an old habit.
Like most habits, we won’t know the benefit of alternatives until we let go of the old one and replace it with the new.
6. eBooks Deliver Better Value
eBooks require fewer resources to produce than physical books: no paper printing, no paperback covers, no packaging cost, and no shipping cost.
So authors can price eBooks lower than physical books.
Naturally, eBooks save you money and time, proving to be a better value than printed books.
7. eBooks are Easy on the Eyes
With eBooks, you can choose the most friendly format for your eyes!
You can choose your preferred font type. Increase or reduce the font size. Choose a single- or double-spaced text format. Alter the brightness of the screen.
eBooks make your reading experience optimal.
8. eBooks are Easy to Download Highlights
You can download all your highlights with a couple of clicks—no more noting down your favourite lines.
This is a massive time saver, which makes your reading experience, from start to finish, easy, fast, and convenient.
And we definitely want to save time, don’t we?
9. eBooks are Environment-Friendly
According to this site, eBooks are far more environmentally friendly than physical books.
It says:
Ebooks save the energy consumed by book production, save trees from destruction, reduce the use of paper, eliminate packing materials and the energy associated with packaging and delivery, and reduce the energy and pollution needed to recycle or dispose of old books.
10. eBooks Bust Vanity
I used to have people comment, “Wow, you have so many books,” and they would assume I was super intelligent. It stroked my ego.
With eBooks, all our book collections are on our reading device— no more vanity with books to show off in the living room or study.
I know firsthand that the number of books in possession doesn’t correlate to intelligence, so with eBooks we truly turn inward, seeking real improvement within us, instead of chasing other people’s validation.
Final Thoughts
The most significant benefit of eBooks over printed books is that they are cheaper.
But I also love more than anything the rapid reading turnover that eBooks allow readers.
eBooks offer you immediate access to a wider range of genres, so you read more books and also faster, so you enjoy reading more.
If you haven’t fully embraced eBooks, I thoroughly recommend you sign up for Amazon’s 30-Day FREE Kindle Unlimited (you can cancel anytime).
I promise you won’t look back. And you’ll definitely read more than before.
The Best Place to Get Books
â™ Public Library:Â Get a library card and sign up for Libby. Enjoy full access to thousands of FREE physical books, eBooks, and audiobooks.
â™ Amazon:Â Sign up for a 30-day free trial of Kindle Unlimited for immediate access to unlimited reading and unlimited audiobooks.
â™ Blinkist: Short on time? Join 7 million people who love reading a book summary. Sign up for Blinkist’s 7-Day Free Trial.
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It’s good to know that authors sometimes have lower prices with eBooks. Since I have more time at home now that all our kids are out of the house, I’ve been wanting to download more eBooks to read. I’ll be sure to keep this in mind as I ask around for good books to read, preferably nonfiction books.