What is an eChook?

An eChook is a digital chapbook.

And what, exactly, is a chapbook?

Chapbooks originated in Britain during the 16th century when many people could read, but books and newspapers were not yet widely available. Chapbooks now provide one of our earliest records of popular culture. They were printed on broadsheets, often illusrated with woodcuts, and then folded into pocket-sized booklets of 8, 12, 16 and 24 pages. They were filled with everything from nursery rhymes, children’s literature, songs and poetry to political and religious tracts. Marketing and distribution were simple. Peddlers, called chapmen (from the Old English ceapman, from ceap trade + man), collected them on credit from their publishers (actually printers) on London Bridge and then took them to markets and fairs as well as to the nearby villages where they sold them door to door. When the peddlers returned to London Bridge to collect for the books they had sold, the printer was able to figure out which subjects were the most popular and go back to press with these.
Often these days, online blogs, journals and short story collections are referred to as “online chapbooks”.

eChook