With the rapid rise in the popularity of smartphones and tablets around the country, e-books are gaining popularity among the tech-savvy readers, especially the young ones.
The popularity of e-books, short of electronic books, is reflected in Amar Ekushey Boi Mela 2015, where owners of e-book stalls say this year’s sale of e-books have been better than ever.
There are some stalls on the Bangla Academy premises which are selling e-books this year, including Sheiboi, Chorui, Boighar and Bengal eBoi.
“We are getting better response from the readers than last year,” said Prasenjit Deb, communication officer of Sheiboi. “Our customers have been mostly young readers, especially students, who came here and downloaded our app.”
At least 250 e-books are available on Sheiboi app, half of which are free. To have access to the entire library, a reader can pay Tk20-Tk100 through a scratch card or online banking, Prasenjit told the Dhaka Tribune.
“So far, we have had around 70,000 downloads of our apps. This area of book selling has been successful.”
Ashiquzzaman of Chorui.com and Jahid Milton of Bengal eBoi claimed similar success in e-book sales. “We have had 2,500 downloads of our apps. This is beyond our expectation,” Jahid said.
The prices of the access to the libraries at these e-book shops varies from Tk10 to Tk250, depending on the type of membership.
The popularity of e-books is mainly due to the fact that they can be read anywhere, anytime through mobile device and without the hassle of having to carry the heavy tomes around, said the sellers and some readers.
Book fair recovers from Wednesday storm
Ekushey book fair recovered from the sudden bouts of rain and hailstorm that caused havoc at the fairgrounds on Wednesday.
Due to lack of preparation, books in a number of stalls were drenched in the storm. Owners of those stalls were seen laying the wet books outside in the sun yesterday to dry them.
However, despite the previous day’s gloomy weather, the fair saw a huge turnout of visitors yesterday, resulting in satisfactory book sales, said stall attendants.
Yesterday 74 new books were published at the fair, raising the number of new arrivals at 2,837.
To cover the losses caused by storm, the book fair authorities have changed the fair schedule slightly, said Jalal Ahmed, secretary of the book fair committee.
According to the new schedule, the fair will open half an hour earlier today and tomorrow, and on the last two days the fair will open an hour earlier. It will close on 8pm, as usual.
