With authors and publishers racing toward electronic distribution, eBooks are on the verge of critical mass.

The new word in the publishing industry isn't a word at all. It's a letter — "e" — as in eBooks. If you haven't noticed that eBooks are threatening to revolutionise the publishing industry, you haven't been doing much reading, on paper or on-screen.

In the future, the year 2000 may well be seen as the year of the eBook. The first half of the year has been marked by well-known authors like Stephen King and well-heeled publishing firms like Random House positioning themselves to take advantage of the growing eBooks phenomenon — that is, the rapid proliferation of digital reading material in the marketplace.

eBooks defined
Simply defined, an eBook is digital reading material that you view on a desktop or notebook personal computer, or on a dedicated, portable device with a large storage capacity (1,500 to 500,00 pages) and the ability to download new titles via a network connection. Proponents consider eBooks an advancement of Gutenbergian proportions. Skeptics, on the other hand, maintain that consumers will never choose to curl up with an eBook. The reader hardware is expensive, e-titles cost about the same as their print counterparts, and ink and paper are still easier to read and handle.

Sound familiar? Recall the introduction of any new technology and you're likely to find a similar debate. From the horseless carriage to the Internet, there have always been early adopters and hard-line resisters. But more and more traditional book publishers, as well as those catering to the professional and business communities, are seeing the potential of digital publications and are working to ensure they enjoy a share in the market's growth. In fact, analysts expect the market for eBook titles and other electronic documents to exceed US$2 billion in the next few years.

The "Bullet" effect
eBook developers have pushed hard to deliver affordable, secure, and user-friendly digital material that professionals (lawyers, doctors, academicians) and consumers will embrace. And their efforts appear to be taking off: The success of recent eBook publications like Stephen King's novella "Riding the Bullet" (downloaded 500,000 times by hungry eBook consumers) and Mary Higgins Clark's "Before I Say Good-bye" are a powerful endorsement of these eBook development efforts.