and you see an ebook on Amazon that you want – what then?
Or you have an iPad, and your desired ebook is not for sale at the iTunes Store? Or you have a Kobo ereader, but the ebook’s not for sale on Borders? Or you have a nook, but Barnes & Noble doesn’t stock it? Or you have a Sony eRreader, but… but… but…
Often you have the option of buying it via an app – Kindle app, KOBO app, Riidr app, Bøger app (Gyldendal m.fl.) etc.
I was searching for a specific book someone mentioned on a sci-fi self publishing forum. Apart from on Amazon (for Kindle) I found the book at Borders.au. The details said “EPUB, desktop, mobile”. Did I know that meant “You can read it on your computer, and nowhere else”?!
I did not. Now I know, and I just spend $7 on this lesson. Provided every one else go by the same dictum and way of describing accessability.
Now, HOW do I aquire ownership? And we are not talking in the “philosopical sense”, here – I did not just buy the right to read it. Or what? How do I get to do what I want with my purchase? How do I get to make doodles in it? Tear out pages? Cut out all instances of “I will”?
First I want it on another medium than my Mac, locked away as it is right now, inside of Adobe ADE (Adobe digital editions, the mothershop of bothersome ebook encryption) :
- Can I transfer it to my iPad? Possibly.
- Or to my LBook/Hanlin V3-clone? If its recent firmware supports ADE, then a weak maybe.
iPad apps supporting ADE according to Adobe:
iFlow Reader – FREE
Copia iPad software eBook Reader – Not in App Store
Copia iPad application – Not in App Store
FNAC iPad app – FREE (and in French…)
Numilog Reader- FREE (and in French…)
Biblet for iPad – Not in App Store
The whole purpose of an ebook library is to un-clutter my existance – do away with physical books. Now it looks as if I will end up with various book apps with ONE book in each. That is… SO annoying!
Well, looking at the first app:
iFlow dispenses with the page turning animation to “give you a number of ways to navigate through your book, so you can do it in the manner best suited to you and the material at hand. This approach allows us to take full advantage of the advanced capabilities offered by ebooks versus the less felxible paper books of the past. ” (Basically it means the text is (highly unusually) served as one long text. Maybe not such a bad idea). The app allows highlighting, annotations, bookmarks and facebook or email sharing of excerpts and its annotations (!), dictionary look-ups, history log & browser and the proverbial BookStore.
Adobe FAQ: Transferring items to a supported eReader
Connect the supported eReader device to your computer and launch Digital Editions. Digital Editions automatically detects the presence of your device and offers to authorize it with your Adobe ID.
Nope. Nothing happens. Neither by this method, nor by manual autorization of Mac and iPad. Relaunch. Relaunch. Change position as to which is launched 1st. Nothing. No “extra bookshelf containing your purchase.” Shit.
The other two apps are in French, one of the many languages I still can only guess at. So!
Regarding available app options I am stumped! I will have to read my new book on my computer, inside ADE, ugly typography, can’t change line width, page a glaring white surrounded by black! I am already hating it.
For sure I will never again buy an “EPUB, desktop, Mobile” (ADE)ebook, but go for the SOFT European moded chrypto: watermarked EPUBs and PDF.
Update: I could have used Luzme.com, an ebook search engine, but it only gave me ebookshops with proprietory formats and…
Update: Too late I found it on Smashwords, same low price, but in 11 formats for the price of one! But… I guess I was lucky. Compared to Amazon’s hundres of thousands of books, Smashwords only have 30.000 books. …
Smashwords – A Larger Universe – A book by James Gillaspy.
Amazon.com: A Larger Universe eBook: James Gillaspy: Kindle Store.
And now I read the book – good one – and I have a feeling I just paid AU$7 for the priviledge of reading the text. Because: Where’s my book now?