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Digital books sales are on the rise, according to figures from the Publishers Association.

The UK's digital book market is now worth £180m, which is due in no small part to the rise of digital reading devices like the Amazon Kindle and Sony e-reader. They're not cheap, but once the initial payment has been made, users can purchase e-books for a fraction of the print price.

Although books have been available online in the form of scanned PDF files since the 1990s, recent years have seen a rise in more sophisticated models without the need for a scanner.

Book lovers can take scores of books with them on holiday without the extra weight by saving them to a digital reader and reading them at the touch of a button. Commuters can flit between swotting up on a business manual and escaping to Victorian England without risking a bad back or ruining the pages by shoving them in a rucksack.

And for those worrying that the days of snuggling up with a good (paper) book are numbered, rest-assured that experts are predicting a happy future where print and digital books can live side-by-side in perfect harmony.

There's definitely room for both and, in my book, the more people read the better.

To find out more about the pros and cons of e-books and e-reading devices, read Guy Clapperton’s guide on ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ WebWise.

Read the full story on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ News Technology website.