Online Books

Online books are different to regular ebooks because they are available directly on Internet pages, as opposed to a download, for example a PDF file download or an outdated EXE format ebook. Ebooks are also sometimes distributed on a CD or DVD, usually to increase the perceived value of a product without adding much cost to the actual production value of the product itself. This offline distribution method was more common before the Internet became more prevalent.

Several large projects have appeared in the last few years which give people access to thousands of these books. Some of the largest archives include Allosia Online Books, Project Gutenberg, The Sacred Text Archive, and the project of the University of Pennsylvania.

Project Gutenberg describes itself as the first and largest collection, however new projects including Allosia Online Books approaches 250,000 texts, all available online. In many cases, companies including MSN help to digitize public text by sponsoring large digitization projects to make information available for free to everyone. This is generally done with content that exists in the public domain, including books which have expired copyright permission.

A major problem with online books is the inability to get them off the screen, so many people believe that they will never be able to truly compete with physical books.