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T has transformed the way we access our reading material - even allowing books to be accessed via libraries online.
Now the UK's first literary event celebrating the e-book revolution is to be launched in West Wales next month.
Whether it be books downloaded to iPads or Kindles, figures show e-books are growing in popularity across Britain.
The two-day Kidwell-e Festival starting July 28 includes authors Polly Courtney, Martin Edwards, Tim Heald, Nicholas Allan and Mary Hooper, as well as Welsh broadcaster Roy Noble.
The idea behind the festival is to celebrate what organisers have called the "democratisation of reading".
The event is the idea of best-selling Welsh author Julian Ruck. He said it officially recognises, and celebrates, the most innovative, exciting and empowering medium to hit the publishing world since Caxton and Gutenberg.
"The e-book is a huge threat to traditional publishing. It demolishes the monopoly of publishers and agents which has hitherto been the case," he said.
"It totally liberates authors and to a large extent democratises reading - to put it bluntly you no longer have a few people in their ivory towers judging and deciding upon what people should be reading."
Mr Ruck, who said his "life is books" and whose study is lined with hardbacks, said the e-revolution meant hard copies will soon be consigned to history.
"There can be resistance to change - as there always is - but the critical point is that we have a generation, if not two, who are only used to new technology," he said.
"If you give a student a great big tome of Tolkien they are going to be diving for cover.
"This is the reality. Book shops are closing down left, right and centre and the power of the book is being embraced via digital means."
He said the festival, to be held at the Ffos Las race course, is an alternative to stuffy highbrow book festivals which excluded populist readers.
"The festival's motto is 'inclusive, not exclusive' and as such has a healthy mix of big names and future literary stars," he said.
"If you're after dry literary dissections of Proust or high-brow critiques of Joyce then this is not the festival for you but if like most people...