One means of creating and delivering textbooks has rendered book buying cheaper. Managing to remove the expense of printing and binding, outirght, which is not to be neglected, given the enormity of the costs. Downloading textbook publications is now viable alternative. Called by the shorthand 'etextbook' and the 'ebook' the two differ..

One of the largest providing etextbook downloads is coursesmart.com, offering over 10,500 titles to both students and instructors alike to be applied toward formal areas of study. Advertising that you can save up to a 50% discount for doing so.

They are not the only ones. Others include textbooks.com and ecampus.com while amazon provides a similar service though with a limited selection as of Spring 2010.

The ebooks are a similar creature, though they include most all non-acedemic areas covering from Romance to self help and everything in between. Overall, the fact that ebooks are available at such discounted rates over hardcover copies is due to their much reduced production and distribution costs. These are likely to continue downward pricing as consumers continue to adopt them.

Many of the digital books can even be read on your cellphone, they are extremely convenient and lighten the load at the same time. With many readers also bringing the choice of enlargening and shrinking text size, they are easy to look at, some having background lighting to assist the eye, and no need for page turning. The book system is eco-friendly, saving on paper, natural resources and travel time.

Whichever the digital text book, file must be compatible with reader device and platform. As of this writing, there are in excess of 10 types.