eBook Info

God chose to speak to us through written words. Letters strung together into words have moved throughout the world to enable the communication of ideas. For thousands of years the thoughts and ideas of people have been saved and communicated to others by words written on paper, and then bound together to make books.

This simple means of communication that God created easily fits in your hand. The letters and pages can be shaped to delight the eye and the mind. The setting of words on paper is an act of creativity that can be made to reflect the beauty of the ideas being communicated. Books can be stored, saved, displayed, and shared with others. We at Shepherd Press think the simple beauty of paper books is here to stay.

In this electronic age where many things are controlled by some sort of digital signal, and those signals are increasingly accessible via the internet, we know certain things are more easily created, manipulated, and moved with and through networked electronics. As we have seen, to the dismay of some, the recorded music industry was strongly affected by this system. The ability to create, change, and transfer written words has also been significantly affected by this electronic medium.

E-books have many useful features, such as searchability, transportability, ease of production, and digital enhancement. They also pose some drawbacks. As file formats change, their accessibility may be affected. Security (unauthorized sharing and copying) is also an issue.

We don't want to ignore the positive aspects of digital books. We think it would be a serious mistake to replace paper books with digital ones, but at the same time it would be a mistake to ignore this new type of book and the benefits it offers. Paper and electronics need to exist together.