/disapprove by flickr photographer striatic

Amazon is supposedly the leader in ereading technology but from the Kindle devices to the web app to the desktop software, the reading experience is inconsistent and even crude. If not for the one click buy which Amazon had patented in September 1999, Amazon’s apathetic attitude toward the software and user reading experience may have prevented it from coming to dominance.

Amazon wins right now because the buying and reading experience is virtually seamless. Has there been anything more transformative in consumer online spending that the one click buy? I mean, even Apple licenses once click for iTunes. The frictionless method of purchase is the key to device + content interrelationship.

But Amazon, for all its technology capabilities, has allowed its software and reader experience to languish. Witness the launch of the web reader from Amazon after Apple made Amazon pull the KINDLE store link from the Kindle App. The Amazon Cloud reader doesn’t work with every browser. In fact, it doesn’t work on the over 80 million iPhones and iTouches out on the market. Those device owners that can use the Amazon Cloud reader can only bookmark a page. There is no dual column capabilities either. It is one large wall of text.

You can’t highlight, type a note, or even use the social reading aspects offered by kindle.amazon.com.

Worse, the reader experience isn’t consistent from device to app. While I can email content to Kindle device, I can’t email content to the Cloud Reader or the apps. While I can create (albeit in an unweildy and almost unuseable manner) collections on the Kindle device, I cannot do so on the Cloud Reader or the Apps. While I can search on my Kindle device through all the content, I cannot do so on the Cloud Reader or the Apps. (An obvious refrain). But that does not make the Kindle device superior. Because of the tiny keyboard, making notes is a hassle. Because of the low onboard memory, searching for a particular book or author is so time consuming that I often set my Kindle aside and read through a dozen emails before the search is completed.

No Kindle platform allows me to sort my archives by RECENT purchases which is a significant flaw for anyone with over 30 books in their Kindle library. To some extent, as a big Kindle book buyer, I feel punished for my avidity.

Only the Kindle for PC allows for copying and pasting and that wasn’t rolled out until last month (July 2011). Michael Hyatt wrote an entire blogpost about how to copy and paste highlights and notes from a Kindle book.

The Princeton study on its ereader pilot program (PDF) said this:

Battery life, text resolution, internal memory, screen size and physical weight were the most highly rated features, while the Kindle web browser, navigation between books and documents, highlighting text, the keyboard, and annotating text got the lowest rankings

There is no way to mass download titles. You have to go to your Archived section and redownload books one by one. Even though you can sync individual notes and highlights, you can’t sync your entire library so that the Kindle App booklist and archives match your Kindle device booklist and archives.

The inability of readers to be able to sort, search and modify their collections is a huge oversight. The inconsistency of reader experience from platform to platform reduces reading pleasure. While buying is frictionless, the reading experience is not. Only competition, it appears, will push Amazon to provide a better, and unified, reading experience.  Here are three things that Amazon can do to fulfill it’s promise to allow people to read anywhere:

1. Give every platform the same features.
2. Allow readers to create collections that are synched with the account and useable no matter the platform whether it is the laptop, the mobile device or the Kindle reader.
3. Include a “recent purchased” sorting option.

Related posts:

1. Dear Jane: Can I Read Books Bought at the Sony Store on the Nook and Vice Versa
2. Oprah Endorses Kindle and $50 Off Coupon
3. Women Read More Than Men, But We Don’t Know Why

Kobo App on various smartphones

Dear Jane:

I was wondering if it would be possible for you to do a write up about what devices can download from each of these companies and what apps you would need to use.

I know that on the Borders site they ask you to download the free Borders eBook app but I’m not sure if that is for a laptop, iPad, Kindle, etc. Same with Amazon and B&N.

~M

Dear M:

If you are reading on a dedicated ebook reader like the Kindle, nook, Sony, or Kobo, these devices do not any apps to be downloaded in order to read an ebook. In fact, these devices won’t allow you to add new apps.*

For a laptop or desktop, you have the following choices. I am just listing the programs with my recommendations. Over the next few weeks, I will do a mini rundown of each set of programs as it is too much for one post.

Nook Owners:

• Download the appropriate desktop software and Adobe Digital Editions. ADE will be the software you use to download digital libraries and shop at other stores.
• There are nook Apps for the Android, Blackberry (limited feature set), iPhone/iTouch, and iPad.

Kindle Owners:

• Download the appropriate Kindle software for Mac or PC
• There are Kindle Apps for the Android, Blackberry, iPhone/iTouch, iPad, and Windows 7.

Kobo Owners:

• Download the appropriate Kobo Software for Mac or PC and Adobe Digital Editions. ADE will be the software you use to download digital libraries and shop at other stores.
• There are Kobo Apps for the Android, Blackberry, iPhone/iTouch, iPad, and Palm Pre.

Sony Reader Owners:

• Download the appropriate Sony software for Mac or PC and Adobe Digital Editions. ADE will be the software you use to download digital libraries and shop at other stores.
• There is a Sony App for Android. IThing App is supposed to be coming soon.

PC:

• Calibre – compatible with non encrypted ePub, mobi, LRF, LIT, FB2, and RTF
• Copia – compatible ePub files encrypted through ADE, but not BN epubs.
• Kindle for Windows – compatible with Kindle books and mobipocket books with NO DRM. Can use the app to read non encrypted books not purchased at Amazon so long as the format is PRC or MOBI.
• Nook – compatible with ePub files encrypted with BN’s special software key (aka DRM).
• Sony Reader – compatible with ePub files encrypted with ADE (not compatible with BN epubs). Can use the app to read non encrypted books not purchased at BN so long as the format is ePub.
• Stanza – compatible with non encrypted ePub, LIT, HTML, Mobi, PDF (limited conversion abilities) files . Stanza Desktop is a crude ereader and is primarily used to view books before transferring onto an iThing device.
• Adobe Digital Editions – compatible ePub and PDF files encrypted through ADE and with BN ebooks.
• FB Reader – compatible with NON encrypted ePub, fb2, plucker, mobipocket. Other formats are minimally supported. Please see the FAQ on FBReader.org.
• Mobipocket – compatible with mobipocket format (PRC) with or without DRM. Please note, that secure mobipocket CANNOT be read on the Kindle without the DRM stripped off.

Mac:

• Calibre – compatible with non encrypted ePub, mobi, LRF, LIT, FB2, and RTF
• Copia – compatible ePub files encrypted through ADE, but not BN epubs.
• Kindle App – compatible with Kindle books and mobipocket books with NO DRM. Can use the app to read non encrypted books not purchased at Amazon so long as the format is PRC or MOBI.
• Nook or NookStudy – compatible with ePub files encrypted with BN’s special software key (aka DRM). Can use the app to read non encrypted books not purchased at BN so long as the format is ePub. I had to download NookStudy in order for my BN ebooks to download as ePubs but the NookStudy App is very robust.
• Sony Reader- compatible with ePub files encrypted with ADE (not compatible with BN epubs). Can use the app to read non encrypted books not purchased at BN so long as the format is ePub.
• Stanza – compatible with non encrypted ePub, LIT, HTML, Mobi, PDF (limited conversion abilities) files . Stanza Desktop is a crude ereader and is primarily used to view books before transferring onto an iThing device.

Nonplatform dependent (can read using your web browser if you are on a PC or Mac):

• Bookworm – compatible with any NON DRM’ed ePub books
• IbisReader – compatible with any NON DRM’ed ePub books
• Google eBooks – compatible only with books purchased through Google eBooks.
• Kobo – Kobo has a web based reader that you can use to read your Kobo purchased ebooks.

*You can root the nook Color but it is not something I recommend unless you have an entire weekend free and are fairly technologically adept.

Related posts:

1. Tips Reading Adobe ePub and PDF Books
2. Dear Jane: Can I Read Books Bought at the Sony Store on the Nook and Vice Versa
3. Free Software

USA Today had a pretty good article in yesterday’s paper on romance reading, suggesting that smart women read romance. The article is focused first on a few authors within the genre that are ivy league educated such as Julia Quinn and Eloisa James. James admits that she got into writing romances for the money. It moved on to address the smart women who write about and read romance like the Smart Bitches:

When Tan tells people she reads romance novels and blogs about them, “I can see it in their eyes that their opinion of my intelligence is just being revised downwards.”

Today’s twist: “I feel embarrassed for them.”

Snap.

While it is a largely positive article, I think it behooves all of us to remember that the measurement of “smart” isn’t solely reliant on degrees.

Investor confidence is driving up the stock price at Borders by over 800% in the first six months. That’s a positive.

The Booksmugglers have a post about books that you should be reading in the fantasy and YA genre. There were some very eye catching covers.

Google is creating an operating system to rival Miscrosoft. It looks like it is trying to target the netbook crowd and planning for a 2010 launch. I admit that I am a Chrome convert. It is far faster that Firefox and Windows Explorer. It lacks some of the features of Firefox because of the lack of developer plugins but the speed at which it moves makes it worth the sacrifice.

Publishers Weekly looks at how publishers are using the multimedia platforms of devices like the iPhones to try out more innovative publishing. One thing I would love to see if an ebook reading software program that did more than simply allow you to read the books. For example, wouldn’t it be great if every time you opened on ebook up on your iPhone, Sony or Kindle, it automatically registered that at Goodreads. When you finished the book, you could hit a link and be taken directly to your Goodreads account, rate the book and enter a note?

Frankly, I’m less interested in video added to my ebooks and more interested in interacting with others. Hook me up with ratings, a review template, and way to share and interact with others through my ebook reading software. Make it easy to organize, search and rate my books and share my thoughts with other readers. Sadly, I am not queen of publishing.

Related posts:

1. Daily Links Round Up – Plagiarism Edition
2. Daily Links Round Up: Authors Losing Their Shit & FREE Kindle Books
3. Daily Link Round Up

http://daily-deals.iconico.com/software/liquid-story-binder/

Related posts:

1. All My Books Software Library Free for Today
2. Harlequin Serializes Kate Walker, Spanish Billionaire, Innocent Wife Free for Subscribers – Updated
3. USA Today Goes Digital, Free Issue for Kindle Readers

Calibre As an eBook Management Tool

In it’s most simplistic use, Calibre is intended to be an ebook organization tool. You can organize your books by author, title, series, publisher, personal tags, and personal ratings.

It doesn’t matter if you never plan to convert your books into any other format. This program can serve a library tracking system. You can make notes about each read, rate the book, and add identifying tags that can be searched later. It’s beyond easy to use this program for simply managing your ebook reading. Simply drag and drop all your files onto the Calibre window. Calibre will import the files and fill in the information in the “metadata” fields as best as it can.   Your files can even be zipped or rar’ed and Calibre will read the files inside.

Editing Metadata

Metadata is the information that tells programs what the file is. For example, it can tell the ebook software what the title of the book is, who the author is, the publisher and so forth. Metadata is important for the reader because it helps with organization.  .

Editing the metadata in Calibre is very easy. You can double click in any of the fields (i.e., the title, author, rating, publisher, tag, series) and navigate using the tab key.

You cannot edit the size or the date. I think that there should be two date fields. One should be the date added and another should be the publication date. Some readers (like me) enjoy sorting by publication dates, particularly for year end lists!

  You can obtain information painlessly by signing up for an account (free) at  ISBNdb.com  and at  LibraryThing.com.   At ISBNdb.com, you’ll need to obtain an access key.   To obtain the access key click on the following links:

1. Developer Area, Remote Access API
2. Manage Access Keys
3. Generate a New Key    (I left the comment and usage fields blank)

ISBNdb.com access allows you to obtain summary data (like a blurb), the ISBN No, the publisher, title and author.   You simply need to enter the right title or author.   Sometimes, you might need to enter the ISBN to get the right record to pull up.   

Once you’ve pulled the information in from ISBNdb.com, you then click on the “Fetch Cover Image from Server.”   For most print books, you’ll get the right cover based on the ISBN.   On ebook files, you might need to add the cover image manually.   Once the metadata is entered for each book, you can then use the sorting features.

Sorting the Data

You can click on the field names for instant sorting, either in descending or ascending order.  For more advanced sorting, there is the word search function. Even better, though, are the two buttons at the bottom of the program screen: Browse by Covers,  Browse by Tags

Browse by Covers mimics the iTunes Coverflow. It’s like a virtual bookshelf. Click on space to the left or right of a cover to advance backward or forward. Click directly on a cover to open another window to reveal the back blurb and other information. (Wouldn’t it be great it online bookstores implemented something like this as an alternate way to browse?)

Browse by Tags allows you to further refine your viewing search by author, series, publisher, format, ratings, and tags. I.e., you can search for every book you’ve tagged historical and hero in pursuit. The better you are at tagging, the more powerful your search results.

Calibre is the closest thing I’ve seen to being the iTunes for eBooks in its organizational abilities. I highly recommend it for everyone who downloads ebooks to their desktop. For the price (Free), I don’t think you’d regret it. And, if you find that you use the program quite a bit, you might find your way to donate a sum to the developer.

Next week: The big Sony Reader giveaway!!!! and then the week after that, we’ll revisit Calibre to see it’s awesome, powerful conversion abilities.

Related posts:

1. eBook Odds and Ends
2. The Library in an E World
3. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: Desktop Ereading Programs

Dorchester eBooks

There are three major romance publishers who either do not release their books in ebook format or do it irregularly.   Those are Dorchester, Tor, and St. Martin’s Press.   Keishon noticed that Shomi books were appearing in the Kindle and Sony stores.   Upon further searching, many Dorchester books are available for the Kindle. There are C. L. Wilson‘s books in Kindle format and more. I have heard that Tor will be coming out with eBooks, first in Kindle and then other formats.

I asked one print publisher why Kindle is getting so many books first and was told that Amazon will convert the book to ebook format for the publisher. I don’t know if this is true for all publishers. For example, Grand Central provides the ebooks in ePub to vendors and then the vendors must wrap the ePub container with the requisite DRM (i.e., MS Lit, eReader, Mobi, etc). I guess Kindle and Mobi (both owned by Amazon) are just more on top of the game.

eBook Sales Are Booming

According to IDPF, eBook sales are growing. This quarter sales were $13 million compared to the same quarter last year sales of $8 million. The numbers are derived from the sales reports 12-15 trade publishers who report their numbers to IDPF. While the numbers are small compared to the overall size of the publishing industry (over $1 Billion in sales), each positive quarter is promising for this segment of publishing.

The Classics iPhone App

Recently a new ebook reader app was added to the iPhone Application Store. Classics runs $2.99 and contains a library of thirteen books. While the books are lovingly coded into an iPhone friendly format, I found the application to be highly irritating. The animation for page turning cannot be turned off (you can see the animation at the previous link) and there is no adjustment for font size. There are actually no preferences which the user can set. This application is unusable for anyone who wants to read anything other than the selection provided by the developers. Further, if you want to control your own reading experience, you are better off downloading the “classic” titles off Project Gutenburg for free.

Stanza

Each iPhone ebook application has its strengths and weaknesses. Stanza’s strength is the neat coverflow feature; the ability to edit the title and author of a book straight from the iPhone; and the ability to organize the books into collections on the iPhone. It’s weakness are that each book has to be converted individually; getting ebooks from the computer onto the iPhone requires the book to be “opened” on the desktop and for the iPhone and the computer to be on the same network; and no notes feature.

iPhone Bookshelf

iPhone Bookshelf has the best “bookshelf” feature. iPhone Bookshelf allows you to setup a bookshelf on your home computer that can be accessed anywhere you have cell signal. Further, it reads a ton of different formats without manual conversion, meaning I can drop an html file for a book I downloaded from Samhain without converting it manually. This sets iPhone Bookshelf apart, in my opinion, and makes it worth the $9.99 price. With the update, there are few crashes (although it does hang from time to time at the end of a section); the ability to “go to” any part of the book; and “live” html links. The weakness is the hanging; no notes feature; no ability to edit title and author; no collection, tagging, etc.

Fictionwise’s eReader

Of the three, the eReader program is probably the best reading application. With the update, there is a great bookmark/highlight/notes feature. The way to take a note is to press your finger on a word and wait a second and then drag to highlight the text you want in the note. Sometimes the keyboard does not appear for notetaking, rendering that portion of the application unuseable from time to time. The weaknesses of the eReader program is that the notes portion doesn’t always work; no ability to edit title and author; limiting font sizes (small, medium, large, etc); no ability to form collections, tagging, etc.

For the iPhone Bookshelf, I would like the ability to edit the title and author straight from the iPhone as well as tag books with paranormal, favorites, etc. It would be great to be able to create a “playlist” of books that I want to read. It would also be great to be able to share that “playlist” with others. For example, we have a Recommended Reads monthly feature and I would love to be able to share that list with other users of the iPhone in a short and pithy way.

***

Those are my thoughts for today. Later on, I’ll be posting an update from Liquid Silver on the changes to their eBookstore. I’d love to hear from readers of eBooks as to what they wished they could change about their existing eBook reading software and what they absolutely love.

Related posts:

1. Various Odds and Ends
2. Books.app Becomes Bookshelf on the iPhone
3. Dear Author’s iPhone Bookshelf Is Available

That thing called a feed.

Nearly every blog has what is called a “Feed”. It can be either an RSS or an ATOM feed. I am not certain about the technology behind the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) v. ATOM but if you are interested, you can read about it here. Basically a feed is content from a blog packaged in such a way that feed aggregators can pick it up.

Aggregation

Aggregation is really what makes feeds great. By using a news or feed aggregator, you can combine information from hundreds of blogs into one place. Further, those aggregators are equipped to go forth into the internet and continually check the feeds for updated information. In essence, someone does the blog hopping for you and provides either a full text of the blog posts or summaries of the blog posts when the blog is updated. This is particularly great if you happen to visit a number of blogs.

I have 134 subscriptions. I don’t check all of them all of the time. I have news blogs, sports blogs, romance blogs, publishing blogs, tech blogs, craft blogs, law blogs, and gossip blogs in my feed reader. Each blog updates content differently. Some of the blogs updated several times a day and some very irregularly. With a news/feed aggregator, I don’t have to open up the blog in my browser window every day to see if new content is there nor do I have to constantly refresh to see what the content heavy blogs are adding. It’s all done automatically.

It would be as if some person went out every morning and delivered all the new content from your favorite newspapers and magazines to your front door. The content would have a summary page with all the headlines available and all the content would be tabbed so that you could go to the appropriate headline in a near instantaneous fashion.

News/feed aggregators are definitely one way in which technology is working for you.

Full Text v. Excerpts

If you start using a feed reader, you’ll note that there are two versions of a feed. Some blogs, like Dear Author, will give you the full text of the blog post. Other blogs, like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, give you an excerpt. An excerpt, I think, encourages people to visit the site more often. Because I prefer to read a full text in my feed reader, that’s what we provide here at Dear Author.

The downside of feeds, as Shannon Stacey blogged about once, is that you tend to participate in the community less. I recognize that this is a danger but am willing to accept a trade off because of the sheer convenience.

Aggregating Software

I use a web based feed reader called “Google Reader.” I’ve only tried a couple of news aggregators out and so I don’t know that I can competently recommend one. As you can see by this page, there are dozens of different news aggregators out there. If you are using Firefox, you can add on an extension like Sage and Wizz News. Of the two, I prefer Sage.

If you use Internet Explorer 7 or higher, it incorporates RSS feeds into the browser. Firefox 3.0+ also utilizes Live Bookmarks.

The reason that I use a web based feed reader like Google Reader is because a) it’s free, b) I don’t have to add new software on my computer, c) I can check all my favorite feeds from different computers (and the iPhone) and d) when I upgrade to a new computer, the feed reader settings are unchanged.

Terminology

• Feed: the blog content packaged in either RSS or ATOM format.
• Aggregator: software that checks the feeds you tell it to and combines the results in one place.
• Subscribe: what it is called when you add a feed to your aggregator.

I hope that I was able to somewhat demystify this thing called Feeds for you. Please let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for feed software or even why Feeds don’t work for you.

Related posts:

1. Penguin to Provide Imprint Focus Blog Posts
2. Editor Leah Hultenschmidt Starts Blog
3. Make Your Blog Mobile

Two of the third party applications were for ebook reading on the iPhone. I’ll review them both here. The eReader application is made available through Fictionwise and Bookshelf is coded and designed by an individual by the name Zac Bedell. My favorite is definitely Zac’s Bookshelf and while it costs money ($9.99), it is definitely worth the price.

EREADER APP

We’ll start with the eReader application. eReader is the software program that reads Secure PDB files. These Secure files are wrapped in a DRM that is unlocked by your name and credit card associated with your account at either Fictionwise.com or eReader.com. I believe that eReader.com is the only place you can currently purchase eReader books.

There is no way to add eReader books or any other previously purchased books NOT in ereader form to the iPhone using the eReader program. This is hugely important to me because the majority of my purchases are NOT in ereader form. Thus eReader is largely NON functional for me at this time.

It’s lack of functionality due to format differences, however, is not the only reason I’m disappointed with the eReader application.

1. It is buggy. It crashed on me twice while I attempted to read a book I had purchased. Second, the page turning bothers me.
2. Page turning. I think the eReader tried to emulate the look of an e-ink reader and thus it features an animation that mimics a page turning. Compared to the smooth scrolling of other ereading software on the iPhone, this seems clunky and unnecessary. Further, the page turning lags (probably due to the animation). You must brush your finger across the screen to turn the page instead of a simple tap. Sometimes I had to brush my finger two or three times and sometimes I had to wait a few seconds to achieve the page turn.
3. Look and feel. The title of the eReader stays visible at all times, taking up 2-3 lines of text. In landscape mode, the title remains in regular mode.
   
   
4. Find feature. There is a find feature so that you can search the text for a word or phrase.
   
5. Modifications. The only personal modification that you are allowed is to change the font size from small, medium, large, and huge and the font from Georgia, Helvetica, and Market Felt.

   

6. Location in book or percentage of book read. There is a small indicator bar at the bottom of the reading screen that fills with blue the farther along you are in the story.

   

7. Advancement through the story. The only way to advance farther into the story is through the find feature or through the table of contents. The table of contents is accessed by tapping the open book icon on the lower lefthand side. You cannot scroll through the book or advance any set number of pages or go to a certain page.

   

8. Deleting files. You press the edit button in the bookshelf and are presented with the red delete button. That allows you to delete files from the iPhone.

   

9. Bookshelf. You can access both the eReader accounts and Fictionwise accounts but only one at a time and only if you have different login information (username/password combos) for each. If you mis enter the username or password, the Bookshelf will look empty but you are not informed of your error. This needs to be changed. I thought the Bookshelf access was simply not working for the longest time. You can download individual books or the entire bookshelf. Do not try to download the entire bookshelf when accessing the Fictionwise.com bookshelf. You’ll get lots of errors and few complete downloads.
10. Over the Air eBook Purchasing. You can purchase an ebook from eReader.com from the iphone using the credit card you have on file. The purchase only requires the three digit code from the back of your credit card. There are four screens, I think, that you are required to go through to make your purchase. The ereader.com site is not iPhone optimized and it took 5 tries before I was able to successfully complete a purchase. I’m not sure if the eReader.com site was being hammered on Friday or what, but it was slow and frustrating. That said, once I did complete my purchase, I was able to go to the eReader app on the iPhone, access the Bookshelf and the new purchase was available for download.

    
    
    

11. Fictionwise.com Issues. I had 7 or 8 books I had purchased at Fictionwise.com that were secure ebooks but when I logged into my Fictionwise Bookshelf from my iPhone, I had no idea which books were eReader books and which were the various other formats. I have over 300+ ebooks in my Fictionwise library and I was only able to download one successfully. I must have totally screwed up something because I haven’t been able to download another ebook from my Fictionwise Bookshelf.

    

Things the eReader is missing:

1. No autoscroll or hands free reading.
2. Landscape control. I read in bed alot and if I lay on my side, the iPhone accelerometer senses that the phone should go into landscape mode. This is fairly inconvenient as I struggled to position the iPhone “just right” to get the phone in regular portrait mode. Other iPhone reading apps have a lock to prevent the phone going into landscape mode.
3. Alternate backgrounds. There are no alternative backgrounds. This is somewhat important because even at the lowest brightness setting, the black on white text is very bright in the dark. Having a white on black setting or an offwhite on a dark grey background would be better for your eyes. Previous iterations of the eReader allowed for a number of different backgrounds for personalized reading.
4. No Bookmark feature or annotation feature. eReader remembers where you left off in your book when you close the application but it does not allow you to make any personal bookmarks. It does have a table of contents feature accessed by the small book icon in the lower left hand corner. There is also no way to make a note or annotate the ebook in anyway.
5. No organization of content. The books are downloadable from eReader and Fictionwise, but they are listed alphabetically by title. There is no other way to organize the books. There is no rating system, no tagging.

The eReader program is bare bones. It has little features and for those who have an extensive existing library of ebooks not in eReader form, this is not functional. Despite the free price tag, I haven’t opened since I purchased the book for review purposes. Until and unless eReader makes it possible for a reader to convert existing books into eReader form and then allow them to get those books onto the iPhone, the eReader app is only good for those who buy eReader books or for Iphone users new to ebooks. The one and only advantage that I see that eReader has over Bookshelf is the ability buy on the fly. Even if the eReader app had a way to get existing ebooks onto the iPhone, I was still very disappointed in the look and feel of the application.

BOOKSHELF APP

This application costs $9.99 and is well worth the money. There are flaws to the application. I found it very buggy for longer files but have communicated these issues directly to the programmer and have been informed that upgrades are on the way (maybe as early as next week). The real amazing thing about this program is that Bedell has created a very easy way for users to get ebooks that they have already purchased onto the iPhone.

1. It is buggy when reading long files. I read the entire Susan Mallery, Irresistible, on the Bookshelf App Friday night. (Great book by the way and read on the recommendation of reader Jennifer. Thanks Jennifer). It crashed several times and the scroll to the next section feature scrolled so far in advance each time that I had to backtrack. Today, I broke up the file into chapter segments and experienced no issues at all but I would rather not have to do this. I also suffered some random crashes and freezing while attempting to change preferences.
2. Page turning. I prefer the page turning capabilities of this program much better than the eReader. The page turning is essentially a scroll feature. Tap toward the bottom and the next paragraphs scroll up immediately. I never experienced a lag.
3. Look and feel. The title of the app disappears and reappears with a tap allowing the reader to enjoy a full screen of text. On a small screen like the iPhone, every pixel of real estate matters.

   

4. Modifications. You can change the font and the font size based on any font that is recognized by the iPhone. I didn’t count all the fonts, but there were alot. There are five color themes: White on Black, Black on White, Blackboard (a softer black), Emerald on black, and Black on Cream (this was more yellow than cream).

   

5. Landscape lock. You can lock the accelerometer from recognizing the phone is in landscape mode.

   

6. Autoscroll. Alot of people like this feature, but I have never really used it. It scrolls the text of the book at various speeds so you don’t have to tap to advance the story.

   

7. Bookmarks. You can add your own bookmarks to a book and because you can name the bookmark itself, it could be used as a tiny annotation feature.

   

8. Deleting files. You can only delete a file using the trashcan while you are in the file.

   

9. Bookshelf. This is the best aspect of Bookshelf App and I would have paid $9.99 just for this functionality alone. Two caveats, you must have java machine working on your computer (most computers do but you can download the Windows version here) and I recommend reinstalling Bonjour downloadable here. Shelfserver is a small java based program you run on your computer. It allows you to access any folder you authorize from the iPhone. With some help from JS Wolf at mobileread and Zac Bedell, I was able to set up a Shelfserver on my home computer that I can access anywhere and that I can allow other iPhone users to access. I hope to be able to collate some of free fiction and extended excerpts for iPhone romance readers through a Dear Author ShelfServer some time in the near future. Soon I’ll give step by step instructions on how to set up the Shelfserver to be accessed over the internet. Essentially this means I can access every ebook I have purchased anywhere I am so long as I have my Iphone. It does not require a wifi connection.

   
   
   

10. Content Organization. You can organize content on your computer and when you download the book from Shelfserver, it keeps the same folder structure. It also lists items alphabetically but because I can organize my own content, I can name my folders with last name, first name of the author or any other way a person like.

What the Bookshelf App does not have.

1. No Over the Air eBook Purchasing. Bookshelf App does not read secure ebooks and therefore, you cannot purchase new ebooks to be read over the air, even unencrypted ones from Samhain or LooseId. I encourage those epublishers, though, to contact Bedell and find a way to allow readers to purchase books and download them over the air using his program. I would think that would be a win for everyone.
2. Find feature. There is no find feature.
3. Annotations. No annotation feature.
4. Advancement through the story. You can scroll through sections of the book that are loaded but not the entirety of the book. You cannot advance a set number of pages or go to a specific page.
5. Location in book or percentage of book read. In a different ebook app, the programmer had placed a faint percentage indicator to let you know how far into the book you where. I really like to know where I am in a book and its hard to know when you are reading a digital file.

Both programs have their issues and neither make the iPhone into a Kindle Killer yet. Currently the Bookshelf App is the one with the most features and it is the only one that allows you to access your existing files. Currently it supports the following formats.

• Plain Text [.txt]
• HTML with images [.html]
• FictionBook2 with images [.fb2]
• PalmDoc / AportisDoc [.pdb]
• MobiPocket (unencrypted) [.pdb, .prc, .mobi]
• Plucker with images [.pdb]

I’ll likely continue to buy MS Lit books and convert them. I recommend Bookshelf App, even at the $9.99, for anyone who has an existing ebook library.

*Note: The third party applications were the first legitimate release. If you had jailbroken the iPhone before, you would have been able to install third party apps not sanctioned by Apple.

Related posts:

1. Books.app Becomes Bookshelf on the iPhone
2. Fictionwise Working on eReader Program Compatible with the IPhone
3. Fictionwise’s eReader Available as an iPhone App for the New Iphones

BookShelf current supports the following book formats with more on the way:

• Plain Text [.txt]
• HTML with images [.html]
• FictionBook2 with images [.fb2]
• PalmDoc / AportisDoc [.pdb]
• MobiPocket (unencrypted) [.pdb, .prc, .mobi]
• Plucker with images [.pdb]

via Bookshelf.

Related posts:

1. A Bookshelf for Boys
2. eBook Widget for the Apple iPhone (Requires Mad Computer Skillz)
3. Fictionwise’s eReader Available as an iPhone App for the New Iphones

Is this the tipping point for eBooks? The Kindle Killer? I’m off to the Apple Store tomorrow for my 3G iPhone and Sunday I hope to write up my experience with the new iPhone Reading Apps.

Related posts:

1. Fictionwise Working on eReader Program Compatible with the IPhone
2. Fictionwise Buys eReader from Motricity
3. eReader Pro is now Free

Via MobileRead.

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From Apple Insider and Artist AudioPollution.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show just wrapped up this weekend. There were plenty of televisions, cameras, and mp3 players. There were no new ebook readers. The only possible ebook news that came out of CES was the firm, but virtually meaningless statement by Sony that it was showing “reflowable” PDF in their booth on the Sony Reader. Reflowability means that IF the book’s contents is correctly formatted, the text will reflow to fit the screen size.

I hate to get excited about reflowability because it isn’t backward compatible. I.e., your older Adobe ebooks that were made without the proper formatting or if the publisher doesn’t know what it is doing, then even if your device allows “reflowability” it doesn’t actually make a difference.

Macworld is on January 15, 2008. Steve Jobs will give a keynote speech this year as he does every year. Last year saw the announcement of the iPhone. This year promises to bring movie rentals through iTunes. Other announcements are speculated on but unknown. One of my favorite speculations is that Apple will introduce a tablet – although this is not likely to happen. (I should also add that there was speculation yesterday that Apple would buy Adobe and all I can say to that is I HATE THE ADOBE FORMAT AND DRM system. Just saying).

If you recall, Apple was one of the first to introduce a handheld personal computer by the name of the Newton. Some have speculated for the last few years that Apple is on the verge of making a Newton come back. I have my doubts about this but only, in part, because I don’t want to be disappointed.

I would love for Apple to come out with a tablet PC to be my go-to reading device, email reader, and web browser. If it were a perfect world, this is what my perfect e-reading device would contain.

Hardware

I love the look of my iPhone with is classy brushed aluminum finish and glass front display. I would like it to have a few more buttons. The new Sony Reader has a nice form and heft to it but its button placement has a lot to be desired.

• Buttons for page turning should be accessible on the sides of the device for easy page turning when holding the device with one hand. The set of buttons should include a bookmark feature, i.e., hold the page forward button in for a few seconds and it will make a bookmark. Ideally, there should be two sets of buttons on either side that are fully customizable so that readers can decide for themselves exactly how they want the buttons to function. A jog wheel could do this. One of the best features of the blackberry phones is the jog wheel.
• A backlight or integrated front light. This is a must have.
• A button for a find/go to page feature.
• A brightness button to easily increase or decrease the brightness (on the iPhone, I have to go through about three steps to get the brightness feature).
• A 6-8″ screen.
• Wi Fi components.
• USB Host. (this allows you to hook up a USB Air card or a USB keyboard etc.)
• Bluetooth.
• SD slot.
• Solid state harddrive.
• User replaceable battery.

That’s it. The hardware need not be complicated because software can make it do anything.
Software

• Ideally, it would be some version of a full operating software. Linux would be the best because it is open source but at this point, I would take anything.
• On screen keyboard. I have really gotten use to the iPhone and so realize that this is a nice feature to incorporate. I wouldn’t use it all the time, particularly when I could tether a full size keyboard via USB or Bluetooth.
• Handwriting recognition (remember that this is my “perfect” ereading device).
• Ability to make annotations and highlight text in addition to making bookmarks.
• Port of iTunes like software for organization and rating. I would like to easily swipe to make a rating of a book, to be able to search my books via rating, to make “playlists” or “collections”via ratings.
• Ability to make collections by author, subject, title, publisher, or anything else that meets my whimsy.
• Tagging for books to assist with organization. I.e., after reading a book, I could tag it European Historical, Victorian, Marriage of Convenience, Female Aviator and then go back and search my tags when I am looking for a book about Marriage of Convenience.
• Ability to purchase books over the air, whether it be via Wi Fi or an Aircard or something similar.
• A find feature and a “go to page” feature.
• Customizable fonts, font sizes, font colors, and background colors/wallpaper.
• Ability to add audio notes.

This is all I can think of at this point in time. I would love to hear others’ dream features for both hardware and software.

Related posts:

1. The Right E Reading Device Might Have Arrived
2. An E-Ink Device to Get Excited About?
3. Dear Authors 2007 Christmas Buying Guide for Ebook Readers: The MultiFunction Device

Last Friday, the innovative iPhone went on sale. Since its announcement in January, I’ve been vacillating back and forth debating whether I would purchase one or not. However, on Friday evening, we decided to hop over to the Apple Store to see what they looked like. There was no line and there was plenty of stock left. Having seen it in person, we could not leave the store without one.

The Hardware

The phone works just as advertised. Its got a big, beautiful screen. As you can see by the pictures below, it is only a little smaller in screen size than the IPAQ 4700 which is one of my primary ereaders.

The screen size is substantially larger than the one my Motorola Q.

The hardware, or processor, running the iPhone is fast and strong.* The interface changes from phone to mail to ipod in matter of seconds. On my MotoQ, there was always a drag when switching applications. The biggest difference I noted was when I went to use the camera application. On my MotoQ, the object of my lense would have to be stationary for several seconds whilst MotoQ attempted to process the picture. On the iPhone, the picture was instantaneous. There are many other great features that the iPhone has that my MotoQ doesn’t, including the ability to view web pages appropriately instead of in the mobile format; the large harddrive; the iPod interface; visual voicemail and so forth.

As an ereader, however, it leaves much to be desired due to the lack of appropriate software.

The Software Issue

Steve Jobs initially stated that the iPhone would be a closed device which meant that no one but Apple would provide programs for it. Jobs claimedsecurity concerns were the basis of the decision. Jobs said “Cingular doesn't want to see their West Coast network go down because some application messed up.” The funny thing is that several Cingular/AT&T customers use Smartphones that have secondary market programs and haven’t downed the network yet.

Secondary market programs are the lifeblood of PDAs and Smartphones. There isn’t an application out there that comes standard with a PDA that isn’t bettered by a secondary market product. Whether its calendaring to tasks lists to reading programs, secondary software programs make a handheld device more useable.

Jobs has been roundly criticized for closing the phone. He then announced that web based widgets could be written for it and there are quite a few programmers who have developed games, utilities, and other functional programs. The problem is that these web based widgets store information only for the duration of your internet session. Once you lose internet connectivity, the web based widget no longer maintains your information meaning that each time you re-access the internet, the file would need to be reloaded.

There is no decent web based widget that provides a good e-reading experience. Further, there are times that reading on a web based application would be impossible due to lack of service such as on an airplane or in areas where AT&T has not yet provided service.

The Work Around

Currently I have found two ways to read an ebook on the iPhone and neither are very satisfactory and both require internet access.

First, mail a file to yourself. There are two ways to view a file mailed to yourself. You can either view the attachment from the inbox of the iPhone or from the web mail application such as GMail. Each has its advantages. If you view the ebook from a web mail application, for as long as you have web access (either via your AT&T data plan or via WiFi), you can return to the book at the page where you left it. The problem is that the font was too small to read vertically and I couldn’t resize it sufficiently to read.

I had to turn the phone to the landscape (or horizontal) mode to make it readable.

If you view the attachment from the inbox , the text resizes nicely to fill the screen but anytime that you check a new email, you are forced to redownload the ebook and then search for the place where you left off.

Second, you can use Google docs. The problem with Google docs is that its limit for files is 512KB which is not very large. I had to split my book into two files. I also had a problem having Safari crash upon accessing Google docs and when it did work, it loaded extremely slow. The vertical view is almost too small to be readable.

The horizontal version is larger.

If you have your own space on the internet, such as we do here at dearauthor, you could upload your books via an FTP transfer but then you would be allowing your books to reside unprotected on the internet and I think that exposes you to too many problems such as inadvertent contribution to piracy.

Don’t Discard Your eReader Just Yet

Without better software, ereading on the iPhone will not be widely adopted and that’s too bad because it is such a marvel of a device and well suited to ereading. I would love to see Jobs allow the installation of Mobipocket, eReader or some other ereading software program.

The Amazon Kindle is rumored to have a price tag of $400 and the Sony Reader sells for $300. While they have bigger screens, the iPhone at $500 has much larger capacity (an entire library could be stored on the low end 4 GB harddrive); wi fi capability; and, most importantly, a backlight.

I certainly don’t regret changing from my Motorola Q to my iPhone but I am not giving up the Sony Reader and IPAQ 4700 just yet. I admit, though, only two of those devices are traveling with me to Dallas. One thing I have heard is that Apple will be providing software updates free of charge. Maybe next year, I’ll only be bringing one device to Nationals.

*Note: It is said that the iPhone has a 620MHz ARM CPU. Whatever that means.

Related posts:

1. 1 in 4 Teens Will Buy an Iphone: Will Publishers Meet this New Market?
2. Apple IPhone May Come with $50-$150 Rebate
3. Apple IPhone Activation and Rate Plans Revealed

Let me state my opinion right up front so you don’t have to slog through the pictures or the features if you aren’t interested. This device is for readers who are technologically savvy and want the best screen available for reading. For the others, I would suggest getting Ebookwise or a PDA for now. There will be other e ink devices in the future, maybe even from Sony, that will be a better buy than the Sony Reader.

Click on the “more” for the review.

1. Size and Form Factor

This is the absolute best thing about the Sony Reader, even more so than the screen. It’s the perfect size, shape and form. It’s a beautiful looking device. One of the things that I dislike about the Ebookwise is the hump on the left side. My neighbor who has the Ebookwise thought that the size and look of the Sony Reader was more compelling than the screen.

1. Screen
1. OutdoorsThe brighter or lighter your ambient surroundings, the better the display. The page is not a true white, but rather a very light gray. The more light you get and the better the contrast between the background and the text of the book.
   

   Outside, the device is simply remarkable. You would not believe it was an electronic device. But let’s be honest, how many of us spend a great deal of time reading outdoors?

2. Night time reading The less ambient light, such as at night, the harder it is to read. Because there is no built in light, the Reader requires either a lamp or a booklight. I have yet to find a booklight that works. The booklight’s bulbs make a pinpoint reflection that is irritating to the eye. You have to hold the Reader “just so” to avoid that pinpoint reflection. It’s not easy doing that for 300 pages. A regular book doesn’t have this problem because the page absorbs the light instead of reflecting it.If you leave your lamp on to the irritation of your spouse or SO, you must lay toward the light. My 60 watt lamp did not sufficiently light up the page if I was laying on my side away from the lamp or if I was laying on my back. I have not read the Sony Reader at night this entire week for more than 10 minutes.
2. Controls

The controls are not very intuitive and have a bit of a learning curve. There are two page buttons that allow you to move backward and forward while reading a book. There is a size button that toggles between S, M, and L font sizes.

There is also a joystick that you can use to maneuver between links and the Sony’s Table of Contents. It does not, however, allow you to move forward or backward in the book which I think it should. I am right handed and tend to hold a book with my left hand and turn with my right. I felt the Sony Reader should have had a button or control on the right side which allowed you to turn the page. Alas, the only page controls are on the left.

By holding down the page forward or backward buttons, you can go forward or backward 10 pages. Sony also has 10 buttons on the bottom of the screen which you can use to navigate the Table of Contents or to advance 10% of the book. There is also a small “mark” button that allows you to insert a bookmark.

1. Battery life

I have not had to charge the Sony Reader this entire week. Of course, I have yet to read more than one book on the device but I have had it on to play with it, load books, look at Manga for Ned, etc. I would say the battery life is pretty impressive. For comparison, I have to charge my IPAQ at least once a day.

1. Formats

Sony Reader does NOT read htmls. At all. You must first convert the htmls into RTFs or PDFs in order for the books to be readable. No conversion software that I have downloaded makes for a decent readable book for the Sony Reader. The best way I have found to convert htmls is to open the book in a browser program like Internet Explorer, Select All the text, and then paste into MS Word and then Save. In order for the title and author to appear, you then have to change the document properties. This is why I said in the prefatory paragraph that you need to be somewhat tech savvy to be able to use the Sony Reader.

Additionally, none of the PDF files that I have downloaded from Ellora’s Cave or Samhain were readable. Even at the largest font, the text was too tiny to read. Other than copying and pasting the text from an html into Word and saving as an RTF, I am not sure how you would read the books offered by online, epublishers. To me this makes little sense.

I don’t know why Sony wouldn’t go to Ellora’s Cave or Samhain or Loose ID or whomever and say “hey, we’ve got this e reading device. What do you guys think.” But what do I know.

1. Storage

It comes with 64 MB of built in memory. Each Sony Connect book runs just under 1 MB so you can probably fit about 70 books on the device itself. The Reader accepts Sony branded memory sticks and SD cards. The challenge with the SD card is that Sony does not allow a file, subfile, subfile structure. Thus, if you have 1000 ebooks on your device, it will display all 1000 consecutively rather than by author or genre as you may have them organized on your SD Card.

1. Content

The only easy way to get books onto the Sony Reader is to purchase books from the Sony connect store. This is a separate piece of software that comes on a CD with your Sony Reader box. I heard that a download link existed but could not find it. Sony makes buying books a little easier by giving away $50 worth of books to any person who registers and authenticates a Reader before the end of the year.

You can also view pictures (in 4 color grayscale) and listen to mp3s.

Of course, this would be great if Sony actually had content that you wanted to read. There are so few romance books in its store that I haven’t been able to spend my $50.00! Romance New releases included 2004 title Dirty Little Lies by Connie Lane and 2004 Kiss of Fate by Mary Jo Puntey.

In the New Added section of the Contemporary Romance I found Nicholas Sparks, Janet Dailey, Eileen Godge and Lisa Kleypas. Suzanne Brockmann’s Gone Too Far was listed in the Recent Releases but not Into the Storm. Morrigan’s Cross was available but not Dance of the Gods. Erin McCarthy’s cute book, “You Don’t Know Jack” was no where to be found.

I am guessing that Sony has no idea what is a romance, what is a contemporary romance and when the individual book was published.

Plus, the store is slow. It takes several seconds for a search to be performed and then for the results to be displayed. The prices are high but acceptable. I already pay that for books at Powells.com and Fictionwise.com. Of course the books that I buy are MS Lit books which can be read on a variety of devices and are not dependent upon the Sony Reader’s success.

What do I mean by that? I mean, that if Sony Reader goes the way of the mini disc, people may be very sorry that they spent $$ on books they may never be able to read again.

1. CONCLUSION

This is a step in the right direction. The display is beautiful under the right lighting conditions but it is too expensive for a device that only does one thing – allow you to read books. If Sony lowered its price to around $200 and had a better way of handling htmls/pdfs, I think I could recommend it without hestitation.

At $350.00, with its faulty software, difficult controls, lack of an integrated light source, inability to read epublished books and other html books, it’s a buy only for those who are really are curious about it and who are willing to fiddle, fiddle, fiddle to get content on the reader.

Oh, and you have to be prepared to handle the constant mocking from your DH who calls it the $350 paperweight.

Related posts:

1. The Sony Reader: NOT the Ebook version of the IPOD
2. Will Sony’s E-Ink device transform the ebook vista?
3. How an ebook reader can save you money and maybe your marriage!

The e ink technology cannot work with a backlight. It actually works to reflect light like ordinary paper. The benefits to this type of technology are as follows:

• No backlight removes the eyestrain caused by backlit technologies.
• Long battery life. The image can remain static without a constant supply of power extending the device’s battery charge for a long time. Sony claims 7500 page turns on a single charge.

Last week the poll was about backlights and 42 of the 62 voters wanted a backlight. The readers at MobileRead thought our insistence on a backlight was a little misplaced. The need for a backlight or some integrated light source comes from the fact that we often read in lowlight situations. During movies with our kids, in the car (while someone else is driving of course), in bed with our SOs who frequently complain about the light (hence the huge aftermarket business of booklights).

As I posted over at MobileRead, romance readers aren’t technophiles but we are avid readers. When moving to a $350.00 ebook reader, the manufacturer has to better the reading experience. It cannot be an even trade. The backlight/integrated light source is something that is important to readers. It is not enough to say that the resolution is as good as paper. So what? I’ll buy paper then and use my booklight or lamp. Because at least with a paperback I can sell it, trade it, or turn it into a pinata without worry of violating a copyright law. It’s the AVID reader who Sony needs to convince to buy the E Reader, not the technophile.

The negatives of a Sony Reader are as follows:

• No integrated light source
• Expensive
• Not compatible with current ebook formats
• No internet access
• Limited content

My advice? If you currently have an ebook reading device, I would wait. There are more and more news reports of other e ink devices. Sony may be one of the first, but it might not be the best. There are rumors of an Apple device. Engadget unearthed FCC filings of an ugly Amazon branded e ink reader, Kindle. (This looks like it was made in someone’s garage). Sony’s device–with its limited content abilities (inability to read htmls and resize PDFs) and its lack of integrated light source–makes it a device with limited appeal.

If you don’t have an ebook reader already and you want to get one now, Sony has the best display for the money. There is a device called the Iliad but it is $820.00. (For that price you could buy a Sony Reader and hire someone from Amazon’s garage to create an eink booklight.) You’ll just need to be prepared to find a good light source; convert all your books to rtf (rich text format); and either continue to buy unsecured html files, mslit files that you convert to html then to rtf, or the Sony BBeB format and hope that Sony never goes out of the ebook business.

I tested out a couple of RTF converters in case I do come in possession of a Sony Reader. In testing out the following, I used Jorrie Spencer’s Haven and Shana Abe’s Dream Thief (which I converted to html first).

• http://htmltortf.com/ (Free) and http://www.sautin.com/html-to-rtf/order_plain.htm ($24) – These are the same company but different versions. The Spencer book converted well, but not perfect. The Abe had errors regardless of the software used rendering the book unreadable, imo. You can see the results here.
• http://www.easybyte.com/buy/index.html. This program did converted both perfectly but a) there was no automatic saving of the file you converted and b) it costs $399!!!!).
• http://www.processtext.com/abctxt.html ($24) – I don’t know how well this one works because the free trial (which I downloaded last night) said my license had expired.
• http://www.logictran.net/products/net2rtf.html $39.95 with $9.99 annual maintenance fee. I couldn’t download a trial so I don’t know how well that works.
• MS Word? It made the nicest conversion of Jorrie Spencer’s Haven but I couldn’t even get the Abe book to open. Of course, using MS Word to convert each book is really time consuming.

There is no real winning program for conversion to RTF. Remember, Sony’s conversion software, unlike Ebookwise Librarian, does NOT convert htmls. Also unlike the Ebookwise Librarian which can take an “opf” file and recreate a book in seconds, the HTML to RTF conversion is laborious. The Abe had 20+ individual html files to convert.

While I love the idea of a bigger and better screen for an ereader, Sony’s crippling DRM and inability to read htmls natively will prevent me from hopping on this train right now. I can easily attach a clipon booklight but it doesn’t seem like it would be easy to convert my existing ebook library of several hundred books to something Sony could read.

Drop a comment and I’ll enter you in a contest to win a new copy of Stephanie Meyer’s New Moon.

next week: conversion solutions for the Ebookwise and how to clean up those pesky htmls.

Related posts:

1. Is Polorization a Good Thing for An Author?
2. The Sony Reader: NOT the Ebook version of the IPOD
3. Does ebook reader the discussion begin and end with backlights?

The extra space between each paragraph was driving me nuts.  µBook can render my books without that extra annoying space. There are some who believe that the extra space between paragraphs is easier to read in smaller format, but I like to my digital reading experience to as closely mimic the paper version as possible.

eReader has very few customizable options: font, font size, background color, full justify and underline links. It does not allow you to change the extra space between the paragraphs. I don’t want a software ereading program that dictates formats to me. If I am going to be using technology to read books, then I want the freedom to make the book look like I want it. Not what Sony, eReader, Mobipocker software wants the book to look like. After all, the publishers aren’t reading the book. I am.

One of the concepts behind ebook technology is to make the book format meet your specifications. Want a dark background with light text like Ned? Done. How about Pink for breast cancer awareness month? Want the typeface to be serif, smooth and 14 point? Done again.

Each person is different and each one may like different settings. In uBook, you can change the following:

• Fonts (type and size)
• Backgrounds
• Link colors
• Italics spacing
• Interline spacing (the spaces between each line)
• Indent spacing (how far in the first line in each paragraph is indented)
• Orientation (ie, portrait or landscape)
• Skinnable
• Space between paragraphs
• Justification

One neat thing that you can do with  µBook is to add your own fonts. I downloaded Georgia font at the recommendation of another reader. This is accomplished by copying the TTF files from your Windows/Fonts folder onto the Windows/Fonts folder on your pocket pc. You may have to reset before the fonts appear.

The one drawback of Gowerpoint’s  µBook is the options interface which is not entirely untuitive and takes a little time to set up. However, if you set it up once to meet your reading needs, you’ll not need to do it again. Beyond the look and feel is what  µBook can do behind the scenes. It eliminates the need to convert for almost all files except for the ones with DRM. For example, it reads all of the following formats “natively” or without need to convert:

text, rtf, html, prc (older and unencrypted), pdb (older and unencrypted)

uBook will extract text from an unencrypted PDF. The output is pretty hit or miss. It also reads “zipped” folders so that you can compress your book files into zip folders and allow you to carry more books with you at one time. If you have a handheld device, either Pocket PC or Palm, this is a must have program.

Next week: A Letter of Complaint to Fictionwise. Get your head out of your arse, Fictionwise.

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1. Book Pimp Post #3
2. REVIEW: Blood Ties Book One: The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout

One of the great things about ereading is the idea of customization. Each reader can do what they want to make the reading experience more fully their own whether it is by changing the font or the background color, by removing margins, changing the scrolling buttons and the like. In order to take advantage of the ereading experience, a reader does need help. Help comes in the form of software programs that allow you the customization and organization capabilities. This series of articles will address the ereading software for html and other unencrypted formats.

In order to use these software programs, you must have an unencrypted file and most of the time, it is easiest to have an html or a txt file. The drawback with a TXT file is that very little formatting is preserved. By formatting, I am referring to visual delights such as drop caps at the beginning of chapters, italics, and bold. This week, we are going to look at three Desktop Readers for those who read solely on the laptop or desktop. I do not include Mobipocket, Ereader, MS Lit or Adobe as we touched on those last week.

Note: Click on the image to see a larger screen example of each reader

• Platforms: Windows 95 and above
• Display: Single pages, but resizable. Displays images (for those Manga Readers).
• Customization: Virtually limitless.
• Formats: TXT, .RTF, .HTML, .PML, .PDB and .PRC (Non-Secure). Extracts text from PDF files.
• Organization: Based solely on your folder system on your desktop. I.e., if you have books organized by Last Name, First Name – that is how it will appear in the “library” view, with creating links for A, B, C, D, etc. You can associate images (like covers) with the file. Neat.
• Bookmarks: Yes. You can make notes, highlight, and bookmark. You can view all bookmarks in a summary manner. This is a great feature for book reviewing. I always mark and make notes while reading. It’s the electronic version of post it notes.
• Last Page: yes, returns to the last page read for as many number of books that you set.
• Cost: $15 (it displays a nag screen every page or so until you get a registration file)
• Pros: This program is constantly being updated. It is infinitely customizable. Has an autoscroll feature. Reads a large number of formats without conversion. It can read “zip” files allowing you to compress your books and save harddrive space. Views images (like covers). Also has a dictionary included which can be accessed while reading the book.
• Cons: It takes some time to understand how to customize the program. No rating system or customized organization features.

yBook

• Platforms: windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000XP and Linux
• Display: Display pages side by side (like a paper book) or single pages.
• Customization: Resizable window, customize the text and background color, customize the way the paragraphs appear
• Formats: text, html, rtf, pdb, prc
• Organization: No real organization system.
• Bookmarks: Yes but no way to view bookmarks made other than by jumping from bookmark to bookmark.
• Last Page: No. It always starts at page 1.
• Cost: Free
• Pros: It has a Gutenberg downloader which will retrieve “the latest catalogue from Project Gutenberg, turn it into a searchable list of books with titles and authors, and allow you to download and read any of their works with a couple of mouse clicks.” Of interesting note, the writer of this program is also a sci fi writer who uses this reader as a promotional device for his books. He received a publishing contract recently from a respected Austrialian publisher.
• Cons: I am not a fan of how paragraphs look in this book and the lack of annotations but overall, it is a great reader for the price.

ICE Book Reader Professional

• Platforms: WIN 98/ME/2000/XP/2003
• Display: Display pages side by side (like a paper book)
• Customization: Resizable window, customize the text and background color, customize the way in which paragraphs appear
• Formats: LIT (Microsoft ebooks), text, rtf, html, MS Word documents, pdb and prc.
• Organization: No real organization system.
• Bookmarks: No
• Last Page: Yes
• Cost: Free but a nag screen
• Pros: Very smooth scroll speed. Built in read aloud features.
• Cons: It is a large program that had noticeable lags for me. It doesn’t display the cover. May have to install additional programs “to import” the books. The books cannot be read natively but must be “converted”. Each “converted” book then represents another file on the computer. No bookmarking that I could find.

Related posts:

1. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: PRC, PDB, IMP, LIT. Double U Tee Eff – What Do All These Letters Mean?
2. REVIEW: Ebook Weekly: Review of Amber Quill Press
3. Let’s Talk Ebook Tech

There are lots of different formats. You will have to download the reader (appropriate software program) to your pc and/or handheld device in order to “read” your books. Think Itunes as the “reader” of music and the “Ipod” as the device to carry with you to “read” the music. Similarly, Adobe Reader, MS Reader, MobiPocket Reader, and Ereader are the “Itunes” in the ebook scenario. The IPOD is a handheld reading device.

You need to be careful to buy the correct format as most stores will not let you exchange one downloaded book for another if you screw up. Most reader software will not read a book in another format. You always make backup files of their ebooks in case of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death or in case your computer/handheld device becomes obsolete in a year. Oh and with some formats, if your reader dies, you lose out on the ability to ever read those books again. Say, like me, you bought tons of ebooks from Barnes and Noble. You download them. BN decides it isn’t going to maintain the ebooks on their server anymore. If you haven’t backed up those books, you are SOL.

I was trying to think of a good female analogy. What I came up with was this. When you buy a soda at a fast food court in the mall, you get a certain cup. That cup can only be refilled with soda/coffee from an establishment that will fill your cup. The ebook contents or the book itself is the coffee/soda. The cup is the format that you can use to sip the coffee or read the book. The establishment where you buy the cup is the vendor. Some vendors will offer different cups allowing you a refill of any number of choices of soda whereas some vendors only offer one cup. Is that a meaningful analogy?

Each format has its own benefits and drawbacks. Which format each reader prefers depends upon

1. need of customization
2. portability
3. ebook reading device.

The last factor can determine the format for you but if you haven’t invested in a reader or have a handheld device, you still have choices. This article gives a rundown of the ebook formats that PUBLISHERS/VENDORS offer. This will not address the variety of formats that you, as a reader, can create from an html/doc/rtf/txt file (if you don’t know what this means, don’t worry. I’ll address in another week).

There are secured or encrypted formats and unsecured/unencrypted formats. The secured or encrypted formats need a special key to allow a user to open and view a book. Each format,unfortunately, has its own special key. (I.e., if the cup you bought had a lid and only a special key distributed to each person could open the lid and allow you to drink from it.

• Palm/Ereader (PDB). The PDB or Ereader format was initially developed for Palm handheld devices. Peanut Press went live in October of 1998. It offered books from Tor/St. Martin’s Press and Dorchester Publishing. (Go Dorchester!). Peanut Press’ format was a “pdb” format readable on palm devices.
  Palm purchased Peanut Press and became Palm Digital Media. There was a split in Palm and PDM became part of PalmGear and Peanut Press morphed into Ereader.com in 2004. With its name change,came a software change.
  See Lee’s Comment which doesn’t make a ton of sense to me but points out the errors in this section.
  • Software: The “pdb” files are tied to a specific reading software called EReader. Other software out there that views “pdb” files cannot view locked ereader.com files.
  • DRM*: Runs with the book. Which means you can copy the book file from desktop to laptop to handheld device to homecomputer and unlock it at each place without downloading and activating. The key is your credit card number and name on the credit card so you have to know which CC you used to purchase thebook.
  • Platfoms: Linux, Mac, MS Smartphones, Palm, Pocket PC, Symbian Smartphones and Windows devices.
  • Bookmarks: Can add bookmarks and notes. Limited resizing of fonts: Small, large, bold, and large bold.
  • Support: Email support.
  • Storage: Can store books on a memory card.
  • Notes: You can change the background and text color but only if you purchase the “pro” version of the ereader.
  • Pros: Easy DRM. Largest ebookstore available. Gets books earliest.
  • Cons: Have to purchase the eReader PRO to view at different colors. Limited font resizeability. High prices. Must use ereader.com software.

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• Adobe (PDF). In 2000, Adobe purchased Glassbooks, an ebook provider and partnered with Barnes and Noble to provide books in electronic format. Barnes and Noble is out of the ebook biz but many publishers still offer ebooks in Adobe format.
  • Software: The “pdf” files are tied to a specific reading software called Reader. Other software out there that views “pddf” files cannot view locked pdf files.
  • DRM*: DRM is complicated. First, you have to have a microsoft Passport username and password. So, you have to go over and sign up for a Passport account. (does anyone but me find the irony in this hilarious given the fights between Adobe and MS over the years?). Then you go back to the Adobe website. Sign in with your username and password. Click on activation. When the popup window comes up, you must select “open” instead of “save”. Select save and you may never be able to activate your computer.
  • Platfoms: Linux, Mac, Palm, Pocket PC, Symbian Smartphones and Windows devices depending on the reader software you download.
  • Bookmarks: Can add bookmarks and notes depending on the permissions granted by the publisher. Can resize fonts
  • Support: Message board where you hope like hell someone will respond but most likely not. Best advice: Don’t have problems and you’ll be fine.
  • Storage: Sometimes the Adobe reader won’t recognize books on a memory card and to view them, you must move the files to the main memory.
  • Notes: The PDF file that is read on your harddrive will look very, very, very different on your handheld. If the publisher of the book does not allow for the text to reflow, you will have to scroll from left to right to read each sentence. (I had this problem with the Lynne Connolly Rose and Richard series)
  • Pros: None. (I’m sure there are some but I really hate Adobe so I am not going to hurt myself trying to think of a pro).
  • Cons: Terrible DRM leaving your ebooks unreadable in some cases. Some books are not equipped to “reflow” rendering them unreadable in some cases.

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• Mobipocket (PRC). It has partnered with Amazon and with cell phone manufacturers.
  • Software: The “prc” files are tied to a specific reading software called Mobipocket. Other software out there that views “pdf” files cannot view locked pdf files.
  • DRM*: DRM is linked to the device. You can activate up to 4 devices.. Each device is given a PID when the software is installed. You then register the device online with the appropriate PID. If you change devices, you can delete one and add another. You can also request the activation be reset.
  • Platfoms: Windows, Palm, Windows Mobile (Pocket PC and Smartphone), Symbian OS, Blackberry. Older versions supported Franklin Ebookman.. This cannot be used on Mac or Linux platforms.
  • Bookmarks: Can bookmark, highlight and add notes.
  • Customize : Can change margins, line spacing, full text justification with hyphenation. Change the font size and the background color. Has a fullscreen mode and an autoscroll feature (this “scrolls” through the book so you don’t even have to turn the page.
  • Support: Message board where Mobipocket admins answer questions.
  • Storage: Can store on a memory card.
  • Notes: Great library that allows users to assign ratings to the book that they read.
  • Pros: Very customizable. Library feature allows ratings of books.
  • Cons: DRM is device specific. The software program is bloated. Mac users would not be able to read their books on their computers.

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• Miscrosoft Reader (Lit). MS Reader was initially released in 2000. It is Microsoft’s answer to Adobe PDF reader.
  • Software: The “lit” files are tied to a specific reading software called MS Reader. No other software programs can read a “lit” file.
  • DRM: Device specific. You can activate up to 6 devices. Can request an extra activation in case of a hard drive reformat or new computer purchase.
  • Platfoms: Windows, Windows CE, and Pocket PC. Not for Mac or Palm readers.
  • Bookmarks: Yes, different colored bookmarks.
  • Customization: Has white background. There is a limited amount of font resizing preset by the software. There is a full screen mode.
  • Support: Email and Phone ( (866) 834-8317 ) support.
  • Notes: You cannot download MS Lit books in Firefox because MS does not recognize your computer as being “activated.”
  • Pros: Clear type technology makes the print look more like a book. Has an okay library feature. There is a software program available that can turn the LIT files into html files.
  • Cons: Restrictive DRM. Lacks customization. Has huge white spaces/margins that cannot be changed.

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• Rocketbook (RB), Franklin Ebookman (RUB), Hiebook (KML) and Fictionwise eBookWise (IMP) all are device specific formats. Limited vendors offer these formats. No NY published ebook can be obtained in these formats currently. The DRM runs with the book and is quite restrictive because if you do not own the right device or if the device dies, you cannot read the book.
  • RocketRB
    • Software/Platforms There is a RocketLibrarian for Windows and Macs but it is only so that you can transport books from the computer to the Rocket ebook. Unsecured “rb” books can be read on a Windows computer using eRocket. With another piece of software called a migration tool, you can read your RB books on the Fictionwise eBookwise device.
    • Support: Email (support@gemstar-ebook.com) and phone (1-602-744-6046) for the software. You are encouraged to contact the vendor who sold you the book if you have a problem with the book. There is also a yahoo group devoted to RB users.
  • Franklin Ebookman. (FUB).
    • Software/Platforms: The FUB format can only be read on the device.
    • Support: There are Frequently Asked Questions that serve as a support area.
  • Hiebook (KML)
    • Software/Platforms: KML books can be read on the Hiebook reader. There is also a Windows reader. No other platforms are supported..
    • Support: At this point, I don’t think that there is any support. The US distributor of this Korean product seems to be unavailable. See the comments section here for more information.
  • Fictionwise’s eBookWise, OEBFF Full VGA, OEBFF Half VGA (IMP). In late 2004, Fictionwise opened a companion store called eBookWise. It offered rebranded Rocketbooks. It also started offering many (but not all) its books in a compatible format called “IMP” There are two different formats offered. A Full VGA and a Half VGA. The Full VGA is a larger sized file and is for color and grayscale screens. The Half VGA is smaller sized file and it is black and white (although I believe it can be read on a color or grayscale screen).
    • Software/Platforms: I believe that the IMP books and those purchased at eBookWise.com can only be read on the eBook reader.
    • Support: Email support. There is also an active yahoo group

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• HTML. Many of the ebook publishing houses offer this format. The html format is the most versatile as it can be converted into dozens of other formats.
  • Software: It is not tied to any specific software. It can be read by MS Word, Internet Explorer, and any other browser. It can be converted into many formats.
  • DRM: No DRM
  • Platfoms: Every platform natively except Palm devices The html file must be converted to be read on a Palm.
  • Bookmarks: Depends on the reader software program you are using.
  • Support: No support.
  • Notes: Virtually unlimited configurability.
  • Pros: No DRM. Can make it look exactly how you want. Vision impaired readers can use the “text to speech” feature on their readers. It can move to as many machines as you like.
  • Cons: Not natively compatible with Palm devices.

• DRM Stands for Digital Rights Management. It is the security that publishers attach to each ebook file you download so that you can’t give it to someone or sell it.

• Don’t buy books that are not cross platform compatible otherwise you will have to rebuy them (ie. when I bought a palm pdb book and its software could not be used on a pocketpc).
• Don’t buy books, if at all possible, in Adobe PDF. I have about 20 books that I currently cannot read because I can’t get the activation to work and I can’t redownload the damn things because I bought them at Barnes and Noble.
• Don’t buy encrypted books if you can help it. This way, you are not bound to a device or a platform or a specific software program.
• Do buy HTML, or if you can’t Ereader or Mobipocket. I like Mobipocket the best out of the above platforms because the software allows so much user configuration and because you can rate your books. We love rating our books!!!
• Or google for a program called Convert Lit GUI. It can help ease the pain of buying ebooks. Trust us. Thanks for the heads up at Teleblog. This is actually illegal (but maybe the law is unconstitutional.) Anyway, we don’t advocate breaking any laws.

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2. Let’s Talk Ebook Tech
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