Most of the people today do not know the difference between a digital book and an electronic book. In fact, many people think they are the same. They couldn’t be further from the truth. They are completely different species of the same animal.
Digital books
Digital books, sometimes also called e-books or PDF books, are scanned digital facsimiles of printed standard published books. You can think of them as improved copies of the print or paperback books we know and love.
When we talk about the digital version of newer publications, they are practically identical to the originals. When it comes to old or even old publications, they are far better than any original you can find on the shelf at your local library. Since they are facsimiles of the original print, this really increases the quality and helps to overcome the problems of many old books such as yellowing pages, smudges, transparent or onion skin type paper, colored paper, brown inks, etc. These are scanned pages, not “copied” pages, and the print quality actually represents better quality than the original book print.
The vast majority of digital books come in PDF format, although Amazon offers a Kindle edition, Mobipocket offers the MOBI version, then there is the simple TEXT format, as well as many others.
Digital books are typically much less expensive than their print or paperback counterparts, and there are almost never any shipping costs, unless they are delivered on a CD (compact disc).
E-books
E-books are also digital books, but they were designed and written for the Internet. Many, if not most e-books were never officially “published” unless you count publishing something on the internet as publication.
Most e-books were meant to be written quickly, with little to no expense, except for possible distribution. Most are short, almost always less than 100 pages, generally less than 50 pages. Some e-books literally come together in a matter of hours. They are often little more than several short reports combined.
Many e-books are self-help books or manuals of some kind, although there are some e-book works of history and fiction that can be found if you search for them. Most of the time, they have little or no literary value, and their intentions are the distribution of facts, instructions, and / or ideas.
Sometimes you can find the e-book version of a hard or soft cover book. It will even be called the “e-book version” of any book. But if you take a closer look, you will find that this e-book version almost always has much fewer pages than the original. You can also call the “e-book version” the “condensed version” of the book.
Although you will find many e-books in PDF format, much like digital books, many come as various generic interactive applications. But don’t be fooled by the initial attraction of the interaction. Even if this sounds like high-tech education at first, you will find that there is not much to the promise of interaction. It just disguises the fact that these books are short, technically no more than a few pages, with little or no real practical value, and even less academic.
Last but not least, e-books are often free or cheap, although from time to time you will find some specialized instructional “programs” that cost hundreds of dollars.
conclusion
Technically, e-books are digital books, although there is practically a big difference. Personally, I tend to prefer a digital book to its eBook cousin.
By Thomas A. Retterbush