eBook on a Budget: Our Best Money-Saving Tips
An e-book (short for electronic book), also known as an e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Although sometimes defined as “an electronic version of a printed book”, some e-books exist without a printed equivalent. E-books can be read on dedicated e-reader devices, but also on any computer device that features a controllable viewing screen, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones.
e-book, in full electronic book, digital file containing a body of text and images suitable for distributing electronically and displaying on-screen in a manner similar to a printed book
The Write Practice considers a short print book to average 25,000 words, which is around 100 pages. And when you categorize e-book lengths by genre, the average lengths of short e-books start at 123 pages for children’s books and cap out at 519 pages for long and meaty law e-books.
10 Free E-book Reader Apps for Your Smartphone or Tablet
Amazon Kindle App
You don’t need a Kindle device to read Amazon books. The Kindle app supports a host of different devices, including Windows and Mac computers, as well as iOS, iPadOS, and Android mobile devices. It can handle books from Amazon as well as anything from your library via Libby.
Google Play Books
The Google Play Books app isn’t as powerful as the Kindle app, but it’s no slouch. Available for the iPhone and iPad(Opens in a new window), Android(Opens in a new window) devices, on the web(Opens in a new window), and for the Chrome browser(Opens in a new window) through a Chrome Extension, this app plays host to any books you grab from Google Play, as well as PDFs and other formats downloaded from third-party sites.
You can change the text and color attributes, view the book’s original pages, add a bookmark, and even hear the book read aloud. From the Settings screen, you can turn on dark mode, use an offline dictionary, and enlist the volume key to turn pages.
Apple Books
Designed for Apple devices, Apple Books(Opens in a new window) is the built-in reader for e-books and audiobooks downloaded from Apple’s bookstore. Within the app, you can adjust font type and size, theme, and brightness, as well as bookmark pages, annotate text, and make notes.
Barnes & Noble Nook
Designed to let you read books, magazines, and other content from Barnes & Noble, the Nook app is supported on Windows, iOS/iPadOS, and Android(Opens in a new window). In the app, you can change the font style and size, margins, line spacing, justification, and brightness. You can easily sail through the book’s pages via a handy slider bar at the bottom or jump to a specific page. Tapping and highlighting a word brings up a definition. A dedicated Settings pages lets you tweak the page-turning options, manage your library, and control the reader itself.
Kobo Books
Aimed at both ebooks and audiobooks, the Kobo Books app is available for Windows, macOS, iOS/iPadOS, and Android. It lets you read books downloaded from the Kobo store as well as imported books saved as PDFs or EPUBs.
Libby
Libby(Opens in a new window) allows you to borrow ebooks from your local library; all you need is a library card. The app works for iOS, iPadOS, and Android devices, or you can use it directly through your web browser. After you sign in with your library card and account, you can browse or search for a book among the virtual stacks.
FBReader
FBReader(Opens in a new window) lets you read books downloaded from its own network library or those that you manually import from other sources. The app supports a variety of formats, including PDF, ePub, mobi, RTF, HTML, and plain text. Versions of the app are available for iOS, iPadOS, Android, Windows, and Linux.
KyBook
Designed for iOS and iPadOS, KyBook(Opens in a new window) offers access to various book catalogs, including Project Gutenberg and Feedbooks. You can add additional online catalogs and incorporate books from folders saved on your device or among your cloud-based storage sites. The app supports a healthy array of formats, such as ePUB, PDF, mobi, text, and RTF.
FullReader
Android-only FullReader allows you to pull in a variety of different ebooks from your device or from the cloud. The app supports many different formats, including ePUB, PDF, mobi, txt, doc, docx, and HTML. You can scan for books stored on your device and then import the ones you want to read. For books stored in the cloud, you connect to Google Drive, Dropbox, or Microsoft OneDrive, and download them to your device.
PocketBook Reader
Aimed at iOS/iPadOS(Opens in a new window) and Android(Opens in a new window) devices, Pocket Book Reader lets you grab books from its own store, those stored on your device, those saved in the cloud (Dropbox, Google Drive, and PocketBook Cloud), and those downloaded from Google Books. The app supports both e-books and audiobooks in 26 different formats, such as ePUB, mobi, PDF, RTF, text, HTML, MP3, and M4B.
