On-line book
An on-line book is a book that a person has written and has put on the internet for people to freely read whilst on line. An on-line book differs from an ebook because ebooks are normally put onto magnetic media and distributed through the normal sales channels. Most on-line books, on the other hand, are free for anyone to read just as long as they have a computer and an internet connection.
On-line books are becoming popular because they fill a gap in the reading market. There are many books whose copyrights have expired, and it is for that reason that anyone can reproduce those books in any format they desire. There are other individuals who are not so interested in making a profit from their work as they are getting their book available to the public, and they choose to use the internet as a way to make their work freely available to others.
There are organisations that make on-line books available to the public, such as Project Gutenberg. These organisations provide a valuable service to the community because there are many people, who for whatever reason, are not able to afford to buy books, but can freely read them on the internet.
There are other private individuals, having misgivings with self-publishing and vanity publishing, have also decided to make their written works available to the masses by creating their own website and putting their work on that website in the form of an on-line book. Angelfire is one service provider that gives its members free webspace to enable them to create their own websites.