We have been introduced to eBooks over the past several years thanks to Amazon.  And in the past 6 months, it seems like eBooks are talked about everywhere.  The momentum in the past six months has really increased around eBooks.  Until recently, eBooks have always been in the form of text on screen, which is simple, and a lot like reading from a print book.  In the past year, we have started to see a lot of readers being introduced to the market, some of them with cool features like color, sharing, multi-platform capability, etc.  These added features have helped to enhance the experience of reading digitally.

In the past few months, the enhanced, or interactive, eBook has gained tremendous interest and momentum.  The new enhanced eBook is one that incorporates video, audio, animations, interactivity, resource links, etc. right into the digital book.  It is kind of like what we have experienced on good websites the past several years…only now it is in your book.  Publishers are starting to see that an enhanced eBook can really add to the reading experience if done right.  At present, most of the enhanced eBooks coming to market have a video or two embedded in them, and maybe some outside links.  Often these are added to an existing product as an add-on to make the book “enhanced.”  In other instances, some existing products, originally written with the future in mind, are being turned into enhanced eBooks where the video, audio and resource links are a natural extension of the actual book.  That is where the enhanced eBook reading experience really shines, and we will all start to see more of these types of enhanced eBooks coming to market.