Tuesday, December 20, 2016

ebook, e-book, Ebook, or eBook


This will be a slight rant, so I thought there was trouble with audio book or audiobook! Well here is a whole new issue. I know we are on the cusp of a new dawn, the cutting edge of technology, the bend of the bee's knees, but seriously can't we just pick a word and agree on it!
 So, I'm working with my editor (I feel like such a badass saying that) and the issue of the spelling of ebook came up. (And yes, for the record, I am going with ebook) so I googled it. Maeve Maddox of Daily Writing Tips has the following to say:
"I’ve been using the spelling eBook. I think it looks classier than ebook or e-book, but that’s just my opinion. To write this post I went to my usual venerable sources.
The entry in the OED is spelled e-book.
However, on the AskOxford site, it’s spelled ebook.
Merriam-Webster favors e-book.
The Chicago Manual of Style has the spelling e-book in its index.
I can’t find it in the Penguin Writer’s Manual, but I do find e-mail, so I infer that they may favor e-book as well.
According to the standard sources, therefore, it looks as if e-book is the spelling to go with.
Or is it?
My favorite, eBook, seems to enjoy a certain popularity in the publishing marketplace.
There’s an online store called eBooks.com
The ad for the Microsoft Reader uses eBook. (However, the spell checker in Word recognizes only e-book as the correct spelling.)
There’s a Sony eBook Store.
Barnes & Noble calls them eBooks."
See, no confusion there! But since money talks, and public opinion rules, let's refer to Google Insights for Search tool, which measures overall searches on a term versus the total Web searches. As you can see from the chart below where red is “ebooks” and blue is “e-books,” there are much more searches for the former.


However in a public opinion poll by Digital Book World our friends prefer to eBooks in written form. Just remember you were there when e-mail made its transformation to email, and we are here now as ebook will come into its own. What a great time to be alive! 

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