[Aztiel]

Hello everybody!

I just got an Amazon Kindle as a present from my parents for getting my undergraduate degree. It is very cool but I've got a couple of concerns about it, and I was hoping somebody here might have one that could advise me.

Firstly, as a poor (continuing) student, I don't have a lot of spare money and I read most of my books out of the library system. It seems like lots of the books on the Kindle are priced at 9.99, which is interestingly less than a hardback book but more than a paperback. Is this pretty standard across all titles?

Secondly, how is the genre selection? I do mostly read fantasy and science fiction books, but I enjoy catching up on classics I missed (first book I bought on the Kindle was the Great Gatsby), popular fiction, and crime novels. Am I going to be frustrated by certain books not being available? Of particular note I notice that SE's library is not fully available.

Third, is it a sad thing to not end up with the physical volumes? Part of the reason I buy books is to put them on my shelf and enjoy having them there. My dad has made the point to me that I've taken this a bit too far, and as a student and future professional who is going to move around quite a bit I can't afford to have a library that I've got to pack up and take with me every time I move.

Thanks!

[Aztiel]

I immediately thought of several additional things.

Firstly, if a moderator sees this and determines that it would be better off in a different area of the forum, please feel free to move it along!

Second, how does the availability of books on the Kindle compare to the availability of books on the market? For instance, if a new Malazan book is going to be one sale on a certain week, will it also be available that week on the Kindle?

Perhaps more importantly for the Malazan books, as I am in America, will that release date reflect American release dates or UK release dates? Is there some way for me, in America, to buy Dust of Dreams on my Kindle when it releases in the UK this year, months before it will be available in American bookstores?

[teholbeddict]

I'm not too sure about Kindle specific as I have a Sony PRS 505 e-reader. I will say though that you can get books for less money on sites other than amazon. Availability of titles especially for the fantasy and sci-fi genres is excellent. If you don't mind finding books via torrent there are a ton of e-books online which you can obtain for free (not saying you should, just letting you know they are out there).

The Malzan books are not available in e-book format, however I know they are available via torrent. Some poor sould has taken the time to put them all in lit format and make them available. I'm not sure what formats the Kindle supports, I know it's not as many as the Sony reader. If .lit format is supported on your kindle you should have no problem finding books. You can check out the Sony library it is slightly cheaper than amazon. There are plenty of other sites which sell e-books for less than both amazon and Sony. I will post them later when I have a chance to list them.



I find the ebook format particularly usefull when you are wanting to buy and entire series. For example I bought the entire Codex Alera series all in one go (including the newest book) for a fraction of what it would have cost me in hard copy. All of the books were in one place so no need to hunt them down. I'm not sure about Amazon, but Sony also regularly offers free books, or has massive sales. There are also sites which have feature books priced at $1. You just have to look but there is plenty of material out there at excellent prices. Hope this helps with some of your questions. I will link those ebook sites for you shortly.

Edit: Check these two sites out they have excellent availability of titles and the prices are good as well:

www.booksonboard.com
www.fictionwise.com

You can also check out Pat's fantasy blog spot as he features as monthly ebook for $1

good luck!

This post has been edited by teholbeddict: 26 May 2009 - 03:22 PM

[MTS]

Forgive my glaring n00bness, but is a Kindle one of those e-book readers that you can get, and buy books off Amazon and stuff?

[teholbeddict]

 Mappo's Travelling Sack, on May 26 2009, 10:36 AM, said:

Forgive my glaring n00bness, but is a Kindle one of those e-book readers that you can get, and buy books off Amazon and stuff?

Yep MTS the Kindle is Amazon's e-reader.

[Coco with marshmallows]

it gets mentioned elsewhere,

but i THINK Baen's free library (available at baen.com) probably has download options for e-books. could be wrong though, havent been there to check in a while.

they're completely free, provided by the publisher (Baen) on the grounds that if you try the book and like it, you'll either:
a - buy the sequels if its part of a series.
b - buy books from the same author if you like the writing style.

gotta say its put me onto a few authors over the years that I probably wouldn't have tried otherwise.

[Astra]

A word of warning.
For anything you buy outside of Amazon Kindle shop, you will have to learn how to disinfect DRM-protected ebooks because you can read on Kindle only *.awz and *.tpz - Amazon's DRM infected ebook formats.

[Yellow]

Not quite related, sorry, but I got a Sony PRS about two months ago for my birthday on the proviso I wouldn't use it until my birthday... which is in less than ten days so I'm pretty excited

More related: try out the Kindle, see how it goes. If you don't like it, then at least you tried it. Hope it works out ok for you It's a pity that Amazon seem to be taking the Apple approach with their product, but as Tehol says, there are ways around their rules. If you get a pdf from another supplier, I believe you can email it to yourself and Amazon will convert it to their format for use on the Kindle. This is most likely in contravention of all kinds of DRM rules

[Aztiel]

Hey Tehol, thanks for all of the information!

It seems like the Kindle is a little more restrictive on getting things off of the internet, since as of right now I'm not sure if there's any way to get things on there other than buying them off the built in Amazon store. I have not experimented all that much, however. I'm sure there are ways around it, though, if I choose to go that route.

As for the Kindle, I like it very much. It's easy to read, it is very comfortable to hold, and it is much smaller to carry around than even a pair of paperbacks. Also, I read four entire books before I had to charge it.

[Astra]

 Aztiel, on May 27 2009, 04:00 PM, said:

Hey Tehol, thanks for all of the information!

It seems like the Kindle is a little more restrictive on getting things off of the internet, since as of right now I'm not sure if there's any way to get things on there other than buying them off the built in Amazon store. I have not experimented all that much, however. I'm sure there are ways around it, though, if I choose to go that route.

As for the Kindle, I like it very much. It's easy to read, it is very comfortable to hold, and it is much smaller to carry around than even a pair of paperbacks. Also, I read four entire books before I had to charge it.

Check out mobileread forum.

[Yellow]

Question for people with e-readers (of any kind). I'm going on holiday to somewhere warm and beachy in a few weeks. I'm definitely taking my PRS, but I fear the sand/water combination that you can't really escape when you expect to visit beaches.

Do you guys take your readers with you? Or do you fear the disaster that could happen? I can always take a paperback for when I'm out on the beach or by the pool, but I don't want to be reading two books at the same time, it would do my head in.

[Aztiel]

Sorry that I can't help you with that question, Yellow. I had my first opportunity to try the Kindle on a beach on Sunday, but when I pulled it out of it's protector I was shocked to see that it seemed to be broken.

It looks rather as if someone had punched the glass on the front of it and it had broken, but the glass seems to be all intact so I think it might be a software problem. They were very good on the phone this morning and the new one should be at my door on Wednesday. Two day turnaround is not that bad, but I am now going to be paranoid about the new one breaking.

As an update about how I like it, it is great! Amazon has a very good selection, quite a few places are putting out free books on rotating schedules, and Amazon itself has a pretty good stock of classics that cost $0.00, although the formatting can get a bit wonky on those.

[Astra]

 Yellow, on Jun 21 2009, 04:56 PM, said:

Question for people with e-readers (of any kind). I'm going on holiday to somewhere warm and beachy in a few weeks. I'm definitely taking my PRS, but I fear the sand/water combination that you can't really escape when you expect to visit beaches.

Do you guys take your readers with you? Or do you fear the disaster that could happen? I can always take a paperback for when I'm out on the beach or by the pool, but I don't want to be reading two books at the same time, it would do my head in.

I took PRS-500 and 505 on 3 different beaches. They surivived absolutely fine, no problem at all, unless you are planning to use it as sand shovel to play with kids?
As a precaution against direct force damage, I use a DVD tin box. That's it.
dvd tin
DVD TIN (To hold a DVD case) DVD TIN (To hold a DVD case)
Item No: 011-0025
DVD TIN (To hold a DVD case)
195mm X 140mm X 15mm (no inner)

[Tamilyrn]

I'm thinking about the Sony reader as well, mostly because as Tehol mentioned I can pick up books I want without having to wait for a reprint to come out or paying through the nose for a first edition (Codex Alera being a case in point).

As far as I can see Kindle is USA only whereas Sony is worldwide ? Can anyone confirm ?

Also, I'm guessing Sony cannot play Kindle format downloads ?

Thanks.

[Astra]

 Tamilyrn, on Jul 1 2009, 10:20 AM, said:

I'm thinking about the Sony reader as well, mostly because as Tehol mentioned I can pick up books I want without having to wait for a reprint to come out or paying through the nose for a first edition (Codex Alera being a case in point).

As far as I can see Kindle is USA only whereas Sony is worldwide ? Can anyone confirm ?

Also, I'm guessing Sony cannot play Kindle format downloads ?

Thanks.

Well, kindle's strong sides are tied with Amazzon.com, Credit Card with American address and Amazon Whispernet using the Sprint EVDO network.
Sony is independ in this regard and you can use it as effectvely in the Canada as in Australia without loosing any benefits.
Do they sell Sony in your country?

[Yellow]

Hey Astra, what do you think is the best format for reading on a PRS? epub and lrf seem pretty much the same to me so far. I generally use calibre to convert PDFs to lrf, but they still have all kinds of formatting errors in them.

PS - I have had a look around mobileread but there doesn't seem to be a clear consensus from what I can tell.

This post has been edited by Yellow: 01 July 2009 - 04:55 PM

[Astra]

LRF is the only option for me.

I don't use calibre at all. It is too much automated process for my liking. I use Book Designer to create LRF, although it is more time consuming.
EPUB has a few serious flaws. Obviously they are not problems for you since you don't notice any difference.
The flaws:
1. Left handed justification. It leaves the right hand side with rugged mid sentence broken edges.

2. Next issue is or is not an issue depending on which PRS you have, 505 or 700?
IMHO 505 is too weak. Accessing TOC is way too slow. Change font size is too slow as well. Both of the features are instantaneous in LRF (as long as you use eBook Library to upload ebooks to the reader)

3. Page numbers in the middle of the page on the right hand side. It is an abomination. Also page numbering is far from clear. Twice having poage 34 of 700? page 34-35 of 700?
Improper page numbering is one of the biggest issues I have with mobipocket format and readers that support it. They have progress bar....epub is better than mobipocket but inferior to LRF in this regard.

But as I said, it is all IMHO and a matter of one's preferences

[Yellow]

Cheers for the reply. I'm not a fan of eBook Library, although since using Calibre I have noticed the TOC and font changes have been slow (hasn't really bothered me since I don't use them that often). I thought it was something to do with the size of the books or something, guess not.

Calibre seems a bit too third party, if you get my drift. It seems to lack a professional touch. What does Book Designer do, other than create LRFs?

[Astra]

Quote

Cheers for the reply

You are very welcome I like to share.

I know what you mean about calibre.
I am not fan of eBook Library. I just use what is convenient for me I use it for one purpose only - upload a new book to the reader. Period. It does it wonderfully. When you upload ebook via Calibre or just drag&drop, your reader will have to parse/paginate? (don't know the right term) the ebook. It means each time you change font size for the first time in a new ebook it has to calculate all sort of things and store it on its internal memory, the same applies to accessing TOC.
After you have gone through small-to medium-to large-to small, and accessed TOC 1 time, your reader remembers all the calculations.
I don't like it. It takes battery power. Let's say I have 50 books on the reader, I am travelling, I finished to read a book, my battery is half empty, no source for re-charge at the hand....I start a new books and all of sudden readers goes through this calculating process...I don't like it I prefer that my old AMD 3500+ does it for me, because that's what eBook Library does when uploading ebook to the reader. It does all the parsing/paginating and uploads the info to the reader. One of the reasons why I like LRF vs. ePub. It works instantaneously.

Book Designer is a third party as well. Probably even more unprofessionally "made" than Calibre BUT it is geared towards manual labor when creating ebook and you can tweak many things. I don't think that anyone who uploads free ebooks on Mobileread use Calibre, most certainly they use BD. It is like tweaking HTML code but having a GUI with intuitive features that does it for you while you might not know what HTML stands for (like me). But you decide how your ebook will look like. Where to put epigraph, verse, how titles, subtitles look like etc.
At the end of the day it is a matter of personal taste
Some people say, they would never spend 1 hour on creating ebook, when they could use this hour to read...I have a feeling you are one of them, if you can convert PDF via calibre....because you loose all the important formating (for me) such as bold and italic text. You read a simple text file. Not good enough for me, because in such case ebook looses part of its atmosphere...you know, like in The First Law when Glokta is thinking it is always in italic, as if Astra knew that I were thinking, ....very helpful

This post has been edited by Astra: 02 July 2009 - 08:51 AM

[Yellow]

The lack of italics, underlining, etc, is a right pain in the arse. I don't fancy spending an hour converting a book (seriously, does it take an hour per book?) but I think I hate the missed paragraph breaks, dodgy line formatting and lack of fonts even more.

I will give Book Designer a go.