Since I was given my Sony eReader about 6 months ago, I have become a fanatical user of this amazing little machine and have spent many happy hours wandering around the internet looking for copyright free books to download for my reading pleasure, and also watching the rather entertaining battle that is developing between the increasingly numerous eReaders that are coming on the market as well as the inevitable war of formats that is happening.
Those other ancients out there might remember the same battle that took place with video standards years ago - was it to be VHS or Betamax? Well much the same thing is happening with eBook formats, ranging from various propriety formats, such as Amazon's one and the more general ones, such as Adobe's ePub format.
This struggle, and the curious sales situation (where can one buy an eReader?) make the present situation very complex for anyone who is wanting to leap into this wonderful form of mobile library, so I thought I would start a blog which would review all the various eReaders that are out there, and locate interesting sources of free, cheap or full price online eBooks in the various formats and publish them on this Blog in the hope that it will help others to enjoy this new form of reading and creating libraries.
I shall also try and give useful hints about buying eReaders, as I have found the sales policy of the main manufacturers completely impossible to understand. One can buy a Sony eReader in Britain but not in Australia for example, or attempting to buy one if you live (as I do) in the Philippines online is impossible for no obvious reason. It is all very strange. Thus I shall be contacting all the major producers of eReaders and attempting to find out what exactly is their policy about selling their eReaders in various countries and publish this information to help others - plus the various tricks I have discovered to buy one if one lives in a country where they refuse to sell the things.
I shall be doing much the same with the numerous online bookshops, who also often have curious sales restrictions based on one's location in the world (Publisher's copyright rules I gather). It is a jungle out there, Folks!
I also hope very much that as the Blog develops, other people will post comments here with useful links and thoughts on this subject, and thus help people to buy eReaders that are suitable for them, and to locate eBooks that will give them the same amount of pleasure as I have had through my eReader.
My first review will (logically) be of the Sony series of eReaders, as I have one model, and my wife (Lotty, whose idea this Blog was) has another, rapidly followed with reviews of some of the more interesting sites for downloading eBooks and software that makes converting the various formats possible.
So, watch this space!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hi Tony,
ReplyDeleteThese are great blogs.
I didn't know that Gutenberg had an Australian branch. I'll be checking that out.
You're absolutely right about the "jungle" out there.
I bought monk some Isac Asimov books for Christmas through books on board but they couldn't sell me an e-pub version here in France so I had to download an other e reader from their site so that I could buy them in another version.
On another note, I see that the Ipod has a reader facility as well. I think this might be the start of the idea of everything in one gadget including phone internet music GPS(tom tom)etc
Hi,
ReplyDeleteYes, I know its complex, that is one of the reasons I have started this blog, to try and point people in directions that enable them to get what they want from their reading, with the least possible fuss - and expense!
So any neat tricks or places you find, do let me know and I can then put it into a post for others to profit from.
And as you say, it wont be long before our trusty eReader will not only be a book, but a phone, a GPS, an MP3 Player, and email thingey and, last but not least, a means to open cans of baked beans automatically.