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FINDING AND READING eBOOKS

by Bob Parvin


The age of ebooks has been creeping tantalizingly closer for a couple of decades but hasn't really arrived. However, since there are a lot of ebooks available and since some of the big players are getting more serious about them, I have looked into the subject and am reporting my findings.

An ebook is a computer file containing a book that can be downloaded from the Internet to a computer or a dedicated ebook reading device, which may also sometimes be referred to as an ebook.

Ebooks are a Gutenberg-like breakthrough in the history of the book. They can be published and distributed at a much lower cost than paper books, they are instantly procurable without shipping costs, they can be easily updated by the author, they don't go out of print, they don't fill up your bookcases, and they don't get dog-eared or smelly. Since they are digitized, they can be searched, bookmarked, annotated, highlighted, and font-enhanced, which is a big deal for sight-impaired people. Small reading devices make it possible to take your library with you and read on the go. Yet, the full potential for ebooks is not being realized because of market failure; individual publishers and distributors are putting short-sighted self-interest above the common good.

eBook Formats

The first thing we need to know about ebooks is that they come in many different formats. (Are you old enough to remember the VCR/Sony Betamax format conflict?)

Publishers are very concerned (many people say overly concerned) about copyright infringement, so they use Digital Rights Management (the hated DRM) technology primarily to restrict copying and printing. DRM produces a "secure" or encrypted format. A reading device may support a regular format but not a secure format. If the publisher or distributor sells a reading device, they don't want it used to read ebooks from other publishers, but if all devices supported a standard format, all publishers would benefit from a larger market.

You need three things to read digitized books: (1) hardware (computer to download and display the text or computer and another reader device to display the text), (2) reader (This is the software that tells the hardware how to display the text. To confuse matters, the hardware device is often called a reader.), and (3) ebooks. The ebook format must be compatible with the reader, and the reader must be compatible with the hardware operating system. To read a basic plain-text or ASCI file, the needed software is a text editor like WordPad, which is included with the MS operating system, or a word processor. To read an HTML file, a browser is needed. To read ebooks in proprietary formats, it is necessary to download a compatible reader. Important readers, which come in different versions for different platforms (almost all have versions for Windows PCs), are as follows:

To illustrate the complexity of the format issue, here is the wide variety of formats for ebooks offered by Fictionwise:

Toward the goal of a universal, standard format, IDPF (International Digital Publishing Forum) has developed the new .ePub standard. To go to a good .ePub index of ebooks Welcome! EPUB. It will be interesting to see to what extent it will be adopted by publishers. The big guns with proprietary formats are not likely to support it although Sony and Adobe are on board.

To see a good comparison by Powells.com of ebooks of three different formats go to Comparing eBooks. What surprised me most was that the format for which they have by far the most titles is Acrobat 7.

To see some ebook format converters go to eBook Converters and to Free eBook DistributorsBook Designer. Conversion of proprietary formats infringes copyrights.

Major Free eBook Distributors

The mother of all free ebook sites is Project Guttenberg, Main Page. Here are other free ebook sources:

Google offers the full scanned text of many books in the public domain, and it offers excerpts from many copyrighted books. Go to Google Book Search.

Major Commercial eBook Distributors

Here are some large ebook distributors:

Here are some publishers who sell ebooks directly:

In 2001 Random House announced that it was closing its AtRandom imprint for e-books apparently because the market was so small but continued to sell ebooks but not through a separate retailing division. I went the Random House ebooks web site and clicked on Grace and Power. I found that the price is $9.95, but I could not find what format it comes in or how I could buy it. Then I went to the Random House, Inc. web site and found that their ebooks in several formats are sold through several retailers.

Here are some ebook directories:

Now, let's look at a couple of cases of incomprehensible ebook pricing. My wife is a Laurie K. King fan. As this page was written, Amazon.com sold the paperback edition of King's book entitled Locked Rooms for $6.99 and sold their Kindle ebook edition for $5.99, which is a commendable price but with only the proprietary Kindle format. Their own subsidiary, Mobipocket, sold the ebook edition for $17.95 in the Mobi format. I simply don't get it! I went to eBookwise and bought the book for $6.29 in their OEBFF format. Fictionwise, which owns eBookwise, sold the ebook for $6.99 in the Secure Microsoft Reader and eReader formats.

As this was written, Penguin sold A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini in the hardcover book edition for $25.95, and they sold the ebook edition in the Palm format for $11.00. Amazon.com sold the hardcover book for $14.27, which is great discount price, and the Kindle edition for $9.99. Their subsidiary, Mobipocket, again, sold the ebook for the full hardcover price of $25.95, which was also eReader.com's and Fictionwise's prices. I would think that publishers would love to transition from paper books to ebooks as fast as possible with realistic if not especially favorable pricing on ebooks.

For a good discussion of ebook pricing go to What Price Ebooks?.



eBook Reading Devices

Since an ebook is simply a computer file, we need an electronic device of some kind with a screen to display the ebook content in words and images. Here are choices of hardware to read ebooks:

Downloading eBooks

For a good explanation of how to download software or files in general from the Internet go to Download Files. You will note that there are two parts to the procedure, downloading and installing.

Before you start downloading files, we should be up to speed in using Windows Explorer. If you need a refresher, go to Using Windows Explorer and Folders.

For lengthy and detailed instructions for downloading readers and ebooks go to Simple-to-follow instructions for the computer novice on how to download E-Texts and E-Books to your PC.

Different distributors sell ebooks in different formats, and they may have different procedures for downloading their books. So our first step is to understand the requirements of our reading device. Then we should carefully read the instructions given by the ebook distributor for downloading. Fictionwise has excellent instructions for downloading and installing different readers (the material is a bit old). Go to Fictionwise Support.

Downloading ".txt" File eBook

To download to my computer a free plain text ebook by Charles Darwin, I went to the Project Gutenberg Online Book Catalog to look for Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. I downloaded the zipped version. I had already installed the automated version of WinZip on my computer and unzipped the book, and then I followed these steps:

  1. I opened the ebook in WordPad. (I could have opened it in my browser, but I couldn't bold the text to make it easier for me to read since my vision is somewhat impaired by cataracts. I also could have opened it in a word processor, but I prefer WordPad because it doesn't have pagination so there are no gaps between pages. Using a word processor has the advantage, however, that you can save your preferred font preferences.)
  2. I enhanced the font. I clicked Ctrl-A to select the text, then Format, and Font. I kept the Courier New font, changed the serif font style to Bold, and increased the font Size to 15, which I can read easily without glasses and which is also the limit without lines being wrapped to a second line. I now often increase it to 23, and the second line is of equal length. I could also have changed the Font if I had preferred another such as a sans-serif font like Arial, which I read without bolding.

By using WordPad I can find words, chapter numbers, or markers by clicking Edit and Find. For example, I can mark where I finish reading by typing something like :: and saving the text. Then next time I can search for that marker to find my place and then delete it. I can also add notes and give them a marker if I like.

To cursor down the page, simply use the Page Down key.

Downloading ".pdf" File eBook

Before choosing a book in the PDF format, I downloaded the Acrobat Reader 8.1.0.

I went to Browse Digital Books in KSL Collection By Author and chose to download A Fleece of Gold by Charles Stewart Given in PDF format. The book is a scan of the original book, and it opened with a "magnification" of 193%, which gave a font size that is very easy for me to read without glasses. To cursor down, I clicked the Page Down key. (Sometimes I had to push Esc when first using the Page Down key.) The book opened in my browser, so to save it, I went to My Documents folder and saved it in my "ebooks" folder.

Downloading ".html" File eBook

I opened the The University of Adelaide Library and clicked the Alphabetical list of Authors and chose Charles Darwin and selected The Descent of Man, where I had the choice of "read" or "download." It is formatted in .html, and the text appears in a very good font for me to read in my browser. I use the Mozilla Firefox browser, so to change the font size, I only needed to press Ctrl- or Ctrl+. The pages have wide enough margins so that I can increase font size substantially, but the lines will run off the screen with very large font sizes.

Downloading ".mobi" File eBook

I opened Mobipocket and downloaded Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6. It suggested "Save to disk" and I clicked OK. A file appeared in Desktop file called "mobipocketreadersetup.msi," which I right-clicked and chose install." The Windows Installer Package took over and suggested installing in the Program File.

Then I went back to the Mobipocket page first mentioned and cursored down the left side to Free Downloads and clicked Download free eBooks. I found Aesop's Fables and clicked Download Book. It asked, Open with Mobipocket?" OK. Title page of my book appeared. I clicked the + icon at the top of the page to increase font size. I clicked the A- icon and chose a background color, a line-spacing of 1.25, and Extra Large margin. The arrows in right margin are page down arrows. The ones in the left margin are page up arrows. I use the Pasge Down key. One can add a bookmark or a note.

Downloading Other Proprietary Readers and eBooks to Various Platforms

For information on downloading Microsoft Reader go to Downloads.

For an excellent page on eReader including information on downloading, go to Downloading and Installing eReader and eBooks.

To download Mobipocket Reader and ebooks to your desktop and to another device, go to Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.0.

The Bottom Line

Even though the situation in ebook land is maddening, it's time to check it out. There are a lot of ebooks available (in several formats, unfortunately), and if you have a computer or a PDA, you have a device that can read them. We have had three new pricey, dedicated reading devices released in 2007 with the most recent and most hyped being Jeff Bezos' launch of the amazon Kindle. All three attempt to imitate the printed page with the e-Ink technology and are not backlit. This is fine if you do your reading in your favorite easy chair under a reading light. I do much of my book reading in bed with the lights out.

If Steve Jobs is as cunning as I think he is, he'll step in and steal Jeff Bezos' lunch by putting a good reader on the iPhone and selling ebooks at a reasonable price on iTunes. I think the "Swiss Army knife" approach has much more potential than the dedicated reading device. I'm looking forward to the time when we have a standardized format that can be read on most any reading device and when ebooks sell for a reasonable price. When these things happen, we will know that the age of ebooks has arrived, but in the meantime I will make the best of a messy situation.

Your feedback will be welcome. Please send an e-mail message to me, Bob Parvin: bandcparvinXhotmail.com (Substitute @ for X. I'm trying to hide my address from spammers.)

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