What is Online Reading?
There are many options in this new era of eBook reading and reading ebooks online. It has exceptional tools that you can use offline. You can install these tools on your system, mobile device, tablet, and other smart device and start reading. Incredibly easy to use. You no longer have to wait for a book to arrive at the book store to pick it up. With the eBook revolution, you have your best-selling eBook in hand within seconds of its launch. Of course, You will always miss the feel of the physical book but, with the technology growing up, there is a drastic change in the reading habits, and the difference is fading away. Online users are allowed to read as much as possible compared to a physical book. Let us go through the capabilities of the online tools available for reading.
Comparison: Online reading Vs Offline reading tools
The decision has always been a challenge. But never matter, If you’re an avid reader who only reads plain text. Though there are some benefits, we as humans tend to take advantage of them. We need to decide which tools will work in our favour and which tools are best for us. However, each option has its advantages and disadvantages, and we cannot just pick one. And at the end of the day, All matters is to see how best we have an experience reading ebooks online using these tools.
Factors that work for Offline Tools
- Perhaps the most crucial factor that leads someone to get a tool offline is the ease of use. As a user, we should have complete freedom to explore a wide variety of options.
- The reading options should be as easy and fun as possible. With the eReaders now available free of charge, you can’t just miss them. Most e-readers, like Kindle, BlueFire, Aldiko, Helicon, etc., are all multi-platform. You can use the readers on different operating systems. Of course, the design of the tools might vary from one operating system to another, But the way it is used remains the same.
- Just like any other tool, eBook readers do receive new updates. So that they can read and view e-book files from PDF to Mobi. The ebook readers support a series of eBook formats such as Mobi, EPUB, PDF, CBR, and the base writing text formats such as Doc and HTML.
- eBook readers outperform all online options because of their additional features like e-book support, export and import options, sharing options and also e-book conversion. Additionally, with ebook readers, you have the ability to convert text files from one format to another.
- You can also practice converting using tools like Caliber, Sigil, and Scrivener.
- Another advantage of having eBook readers on your system is that you can read eBooks on the go and the sync option that allows you to save your bookmarks across all devices. Therefore, you can read on anytime, anywhere.
Factors that work for Online Tools
- The significant benefit that stands tall while looking at online tools is, of course, their ease of use. In comparison, online tools are far easier to load than offline e-book readers. If it is an offline application, you will need to install them first on your system and then open the book. The process comparatively takes a longer time. If you want instant access to a book, online e-book reading tools and websites are the best options to go.
- Apart from the above, there are also privacy issues. Suppose you want to use one of the e-book readers to read and install on your system. In this case, there is a high risk of getting infected with viruses. Viruses are loaded along with the e-book reading software package and will get installed with them automatically.
- With online tools, all you need to do is provide the URL of the file you wish to open, and the browser will do the rest. Yes, Online websites have multiple options to read your e-book, but there might be data loss while uploading your e-book. However, if you do this through a website risk of losing data is very low, and you will not lose any information.
- Though e-book readers come in all shapes and sizes, they still occupy your system space. What if you might run out of disk space and suddenly need to remove the tools. It will also delete all user information from the installed application and may not be sync with the other devices. However, when it comes to an online tool, the best part is its usability. All you need to do is register or create an account and start reading. You can always read your favourite eBooks again and again from any browser, at any time, and from anywhere.
Best websites for reading eBooks Online:
Now that we have covered e-book formats. Let’s take a look at the online e-book readers list. Most of these websites have an account registration option. That enables us to read a book with no frills. Having an account is a best practice, so you don’t lose anything. However, if you wish to read the e-book instantly, you can access it through the websites. All in all, these websites have a wide variety of features that allow you to read books the way you want.
Below is the top list for your perusal
Project Gutenberg is the mother of all e-book sites to read eBooks Online. It all started in 1971 with forming the first electronic book, the “Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.” Many websites that offer free public domain e-books use the titles initially uploaded to Project Gutenberg. The catalogue contains around 45,000 books in the public domain.
If you are looking for great classic books, Project Gutenberg is the best place to go. Since beginning in the early 1970s, Project Guttenberg has brought writers and publishers to publish with great features. And the collaboration continues, as American Press history became a vital part of this website. You can find a great wealth of information about History and politics on this website, Which is free to download as e-books.
You can use Project Guttenberg in multiple ways. You have the option to choose the HTML file to open the e-book of your interest. Or in the plain text version, which can be Read E-Book Directly. This option allows you to open the book in a new window for reading.
Feature Analysis :
- The option to read the book online shows all the elements of a book. You can see the book’s original cover as well as the illustrations inside. You can also easily navigate the books using the table of contents or just clicking on the hyperlinks.
- There is an advantage of having an HTML file open in a browser. This file is completely searchable. You can use your browser’s search functionality to search for words in the book.
- You can explore Project Gutenberg from the most popular e-book download list. You can find the world’s most popular and loved books here.
Some of the popular books are listed below:
Dracula by Bram Stoker, The Adventures from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll or Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bront, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Works by Edgar Allan Poe, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, A Tale of Two Cities by Mark Twain, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive read eBooks Online, founded in 1996, Is a non-profit organization that offers free access to digital or digitized content like Books, Pictures, Videos, and Audio files.
The catalogue contains more than 25,000,000 books and other fully accessible text files. You can even browse a collection of 13,000,00 contemporary e-book for free by signing up. These e-books are available at: archive.org/details/texts.
On the upper right side, the corner uses the search box to find the book. The list of results shows the collection of popular libraries. You have an option of sorting the results by relevance, title, views, and by date. With tools on the left side, you can narrow down the list of results by media type, available for free or can be borrowed, language or creator. To start reading, You need to click on the arrows in the lower bar of the opened book image. You can enter full-screen mode by clicking the full-screen button in the bottom right corner.
Feature Analysis:
- The online viewer displays the scanned pages of the book, which gives an extra touch to reading. There are multiple ways to review book content, like single page view and zoom view.
- The content of the book is completely searchable. Use the search bar in the upper right section to find a word. All results found are marked in the progress bar at the bottom.
- One of the best things about the internet archive is the text-to-speech feature. You can activate it by clicking the speaker icon in the bottom right corner of the book viewer.
- Remarkably, the internet archive houses a large number of foreign language books. There are more than 20 languages, and the number of published texts exceeds 1,000 for each language.
Open Library Online
Open Library read eBooks Online is a separate project from the Internet Archive that focuses on library records collection. Their goal is to create a web page for every book ever published. You can find all of its documented editions on a page of each book.
Compared to the Internet Archive, which has extensive cataloguing and advanced search capabilities, the Open Library website is much simpler and easier to use and can find the books you need much faster.
Under the Classics section, you will find over 30,000,00 books that are accessed free to read online or download.
Feature Analysis :
- When you find the book, you will immediately come to know whether you can read it by looking for the big blue “Read” button. You can even listen to the audio version by mouse over the headphones icon. By clicking on the “read” button, you will be re-directed to full-screen reader mode on the Internet Archive website.
- On the top right side corner of the viewer, you will see an option to download the e-book, usually in epub or pdf format.
- Open Library also features contemporary books that are free to read. If you choose to borrow them, you may need to register with the Open Library or find the books in your local library using WorldCat or Library Link. Every book in the library is strike with a “Check Out” button instead of a “Read.”
Google Books – Read eBook Online
If you’re a student and interested in research and presentations, you may have come across a service called Google Scholar. The idea of the Google project was to launch and bring almost all universities and research books under one window, which got abruptly halted up for some reason. For general users, Google quickly rolled out a service that would later be known as Google Books and you can also read ebooks online in this.
An extensive collection of books. Those were scanned and made viewable on Google. To access and read these books, you need to log in with your Google ID. Recently, Google Books has become a Marketplace, Where you can buy these books for offline use. With the opening of new portals, there are plenty of options to buy the books now.
The Google Books home page is a search field. More importantly, Google will ask you to check out Google Play, its online bookstore and to continue in the Google Books project, use the search box on the left.
Feature Analysis :
- To explore this vast library of digitized books, you need to type in something, like the author name or the title of a book.
- It is not feasible to preview all books online, but you can narrow down your search results to just what it has. Simply click on “Any view” in the top bar and select “Free eBooks Online in Google eBooks” from a drop-down list to view the books which are allowed to be read online from beginning to end.
- Google Books also offers the ability to preview free samples of books not available in the public domain. To view a list of these books, please select the “Preview Available” option from the “Any Book” drop-down menu.
- Previewing a copyrighted title for free on Google Books doesn’t limit the first section of the book. For example, a publisher sets a free preview of 20% of a book. He can choose a chapter in the middle and read 20% from thereon. Or choose from page to page if he wants. until it reaches the free page limit set by the publisher
Blurb Bookstore
Blurb is one of the largest self-publishing websites to read eBooks Online, e-books created using this platform is an amalgamation of quality and design, It is a one-stop solution for all your e-book needs. You can find everything here you wish to do with your e-Book. Blurb focuses more on the visual appeal of the e-book. You can buy books and get instant reading access.
Blurb shows the entire content in preview mode, Which is an excellent way for avid readers to checkout content online with minimum spending. You can even download your favourite books, but it is not recommendable as the website itself offers a great reading experience, so it is always better to use a website reading tool rather than downloading the eBook.
Feature Analysis :
- Since the site focuses on showcasing beautifully designed books, the makers designed the reading interface keeping in mind. With this interface, you’ll get all of the controls as expected from a decent e-book reader. Just go on, and read anything you wish without worrying about any e-book reading tools.
- There is an option called preview book. It allows you to read a sample and not the entire book, which is a better way to analyze and decide whether you want to purchase it.
- It takes a while to preview the book online, but the wait is worth it for books that provide visual inspiration. Blurb is something that takes pride in bringing you the best visual experience in any online mode.
Scribd Online Reading
Scribd is an open publishing platform. You can access via subscription millions of documents like comics, presentations, brochures, eBooks, and Audiobooks. Most users describe the service as a treasure of documents as you will find almost any type of book within the archive of Scribd. Though Scribd is a significant repository of books, searching a particular title or document might be tedious as the search functionality of Scribd is a bit old school.
Scribd offers two types of subscriptions to its visitors a monthly subscription and the free trial version for one or two months, depending on the seasonal offer. This way, you can go ahead and check on the platform and also try out all the features of the online reading tool.
You also have several options to share what you’ve read. There is an option to embed a book on a blog or website. Just paste the URL into the search bar and get started. There is no need to switch windows to get reading.
Feature Analysis:
- Although the site was full of Google ads a while ago, the problem now seems to be resolved. Previously Google ads made it almost impossible to focus on reading. With new updates coming in, the user interface is much smoother, and the reading experience is much better than before.
- Scribd lets you see what you want instantly. You can see the contents of a book as soon as you open the book page. Just one click on the title is all it takes to get an instant preview of the book with no latency. You have the freedom to search multiple books in quick succession. Once you scroll down, All the annoying elements disappear, leaving only a top toolbar and a download widget, and it makes reading even more accessible and more attractive than ever.
Wattpad
Wattpad is one of the world’s most popular websites to read eBooks Online, and as an e-book community hub, you’re in good hands with what you read. You will get recommendations once you spend quality time here and, these e-book recommendations come through people of the same interests as you.
According to official figures, Wattpad readers spend more than 2 billion minutes on the site every month. More than 10,000 readers are connected every minute. The website supports more than 20 universal languages. Choose your native language, and you will see books in your language and book recommendations by users who have chosen the same style. Multiple formats are not just a great way to build your reading groups but to collaborate on projects with the same passion.
In addition to being a great website, Wattpad also has an active Android and iOS app. You can register the apps under the same account and sync your recommendations across all devices. You will get all your book lists, preferences, groups, which get displayed within the device in the app. You can avail all the benefits of websites within the application.
Feature Analysis :
- We can upload not just stories instead. We also get to know about the new arrivals. This feature enables you to see the books that got added recently, which are of similar interest. Since Wattpad has several tie-ups with multiple publishing forums, you can approach publishing your work. One kind of win-win situation that the website offers to its users is the publishing deals when they appear in their featured stories.
- On Wattpad, you also have a feature for discovering new books and writings. Just click the discover icon under the navigation bar, and you will see books that you may have initially overlooked. It’s also a great way to build a diverse in-house publishing group.
Smashwords
It is one of the leading online platforms to read eBooks Online with independent authors and publishers. Over 500,000 e-books and over 100,000 self-published authors are associated with it.
There are around 100,000 titles available to download for free and for free viewing online. Smashwords gives you the option to set the duration of a free preview. Many authors choose to allow readers to preview the entire book online.
To view the books which are free to read in your internet browser, go to Smashwords free e-book catalogue. Then change the display of entries from stacks to lists view, and to do this, click the bullet list icon in the upper right corner. In List View, look for the Online Reader button, Which appears at the bottom of an entry next to the blue eBook format buttons.
Feature Analysis :
- Mostly, The process of purchasing the title and instantly reading is simple.
- Many customization options are available to choose from. You can choose 4 levels of font size, as the browser gives you text font options for Arial, Courier, Times, Verdana, Georgia. You can even customize the colours by setting your preferred font and background.
- A reading sample is instantly available for titles listed directly in Smashwords. If Smashwords is an editor of the book, be assured of getting a free sample on the original page that your browser can read. This way, learning and finding original works becomes easy. Additionally, The authors of Smashwords have the option of offering the duration of the preview, depending on which you can find the sample on the website.
- Also, scroll down a book detail page to see a table of available eBook reading formats. You will observe that the same title is available to you in different e-book formats. Most of which you can download after creating an account, click online reading to start reading or download the files as a PDF, Mobi, etc., and read in applications like Caliber, Blio etc.
ManyBooks
ManyBooks does offer free books and also read ebooks online in a clean and user-friendly interface. The website is ad-supported, but these ads usually appear at the bottom of the browser window and aren’t too annoying. Most of the books are from Project Gutenberg and websites that sell books under a Creative Commons license.
A total of more than 50,000 books are available, all with beautifully designed covers. In addition, each book is available in multiple file formats, far better than you can find anywhere else.
After finding the preferred book, go to the detail page and click the large “Read Online” button.
Feature Analysis:
- The reading interface is crystal clear and beautifully designed, although there is a latency issue while loading, especially if it has a book cover.
- Most importantly, Every title in the ManyBooks catalogue is easy to read in your internet browser.
- You can change the font size to 4 levels, The website works well, and books are read easily on mobile devices.
BookRix
BookRix is another platform that offers self-published author books as well as free books available in the public domain. A free e-book catalogue is an integral part of the website. At the top of a list are the most popular categories like literary fiction, romance, fantasy, suspense, and youth-adult fiction.
If you select a category, books are sorted based on popularity, and the top list gets displayed for free books offered by modern authors.
Feature Analysis:
- Many classic public domain titles are also listed in BookRix’s free e-book directory. You can find them under the fiction category.
- When you have found the book of your choice, click on the cover or title to go to the book’s detail page. To open an online viewer, look for the “Read Book” button next to the cover.
Bottom Line on Reading eBooks Online:
With so many options available online, all you need to focus on is one to read. These numerous online options bring out many new features, which may or may not work for you as a reader. If you want to read right away, online e-book readers are the right way to opt. You may also find that some of these options have their e-book publishing forums, which is an advantage to anyone looking to take their work beyond the boundaries of the usual publishers.
If you are a writer and want to get your work to market in the best possible way, you may need professional help. You may need to hire an online publishing service provider like ours and take advantage of a sophisticated literary work. Therefore we provide you with the product that can be used on these online platforms and help you take the big step towards publishing your work. Email us now, and let’s give your work the attention it deserves.
