My First E-Book Adventure
I have a fair number of books on my shelves. Enough that I can’t buy many more without running out of room. My Japanese comics collections already resides in my food cabinet (which is fine, as it isn’t used much for food these days). I bought an Onyx Boox reader which arrived recently, and I’d read some free (out of copyright) books from Project Gutenberg.
The reason for going the electronic book reader route is to decrease the amount of Stuff I’m accumulating. I’ve even started looking into getting rid of part of my anime DVD collection (listed on my for sale page, and available to anyone in my area who can buy in person).
Going digital is something I’ve only started recently with music. I’ve bought a handful of music online, but until recently had been buying CDs. It started with some Japanese music, where a one dollar song was a lot cheaper than importing a $25 CD containing two songs and their two karaoke versions. With CDs cheaply available in the US, it’s harder to justify the cost for digital download versus what the CD offers. Digital means instant MP3s. CD means a few days way, but the ability to copy music as FLAC (my preferred format), and a contribution to the Stuff filling my bedroom (which I’m trying to cut back on). If the CD is cheaper, then buying digital means I’m essentially paying for getting music without the Stuff.
Back to books, I’ve wanted an e-reader since around 2003 or 2004 for this same reason. There are many older books (out of copyright) I’d like to read, but reading them on the computer simply isn’t comfortable for me. Computers are fine for short reading sessions, or skimming, but to really get into a story (or non-fiction reading material), the computer screen just doesn’t work out for me. The “e-ink” technology solves this problem, and as a bonus I can store a library of books in only the space taken by the e-reader.
Not all books I would like to read are out of copyright. Unfortunately, most of those that are copyrighted are not available electronically. I’m hoping that this turns around, with more new publications being available electronically. And like with music in its digital infancy, those books that are being published electronically happen to be DRM-encumbered (which I do not expect to ever go away, so here’s hoping I’m wrong). Before making a purchase, I had to make certain (like with the songs I bought from iTunes some years back) that I would be able to strip off that DRM, and read it on my reader (which does not support DRM).
Today I decided to buy my first e-book. I went with Barnes & Noble because I wanted to go with the Epub format, and I found tools for circumventing it. Signing up for an account requires creating a password requiring one to “Use 6-15 letters, numbers, or numeric symbols. CaSe SeNsItIvE. No spaces.” which means I can’t use my normal type of password (often over 30 characters long), which isn’t any fun, especially when my designed password could only be compressed from 34 characters to 16. Luckily it turned out that a period isn’t allowed, so that took it down to 15.
This particular book I planned on buying is listed at about $25.00 (or $20 bought online) for hardcover, $15.00 (or $10.00 bought online) for paperback, and $10.00 for e-book. I am one of those people who feels the e-book version should be cheaper than paperback, and the online price of the paperback makes it feel as if the e-book and paperback are the same price. I am not one of those people who feels every creation that can be copied at no cost should be free. I also feel that, based on reviews of this book on Amazon.com, that $10 is a justifiable price. I also expect that I will finish this book if I own an electronic copy, whereas paperback books I buy I sometimes finish and sometimes do not finish (due to various inconveniences of paperback books for me).
Other than the password issues, creating an account and buying the book was easily enough. The “thank you for purchasing” page has link, “Go to Your eBooks Library”, at the bottom of the page, which would take me to a place to download my purchase. This area included some free books (Dracula; Pride and Prejudice; Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary; Little Women), with my purchase down at the bottom of the list. At first I thought I was looking at a listing of books available to buy, wondering where my book was, but I figured it out.
Left-clicking on a “Download” link left Opera (my web browser of choice) thinking (with the mouse pointer showing the “waiting” icon), and after a minute of this, I resorted to middle-clicking the link instead, to open it in a new tab. The new tab prompted me with a save/open dialog. I don’t know why simply left-clicking wasn’t working out, but I was able to download the book (and the four freebies, just in case I need something to read and don’t have anything else new with me).
Ten dollars down, book downloaded, DRM removed, and onto the reader it goes, and the book is accessible. (The free books were not DRMed, which makes sense as they’re likely all out of copyright.) It feels weird not owning a physical copy of the book, but the digital copy isn’t any worse (I wouldn’t be lending or selling it), so I’m certain I’ll adjust easily.
