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I paid for my Kindle within 6 months, purely from the difference in retail prices for books (in Australia we have ridiculously high prices for books because we have retarded protectionist laws on book publishing). I'm paying $10ish for a download to the Kindle, $25 for a dead tree paperback...doesn't take many books to pay back the cost.
There's third-party library management software (I use Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/ ) that will manage your library on the PC and allow you to format-shift which then allows you to email the books to friends (provided they've got an e-reader of course).

And then of course I discovered that most of the pirate sites have a few thousand ebook torrent links. Not being able to sell second-hand books becomes pretty irrelevant when you can just grab what you want from the tubes for free, send it to your friends for free (and still have your copy available too of course).

I understand why a published author dedicated to the appreciation of fine literature would be worried about ebooks. The business model for novels is pretty much screwed by ebook piracy. However, as usual, I think all we'll lose is the commercial shite and the people who really want to write will continue to write. It's just harder to see how they'll get paid to do it.

Yeah, I don't really see the need for this new type, but as long as Calibre supports it if it catches on then I don't care.

I happened to have scanned my modest book library here (~500 items) with GCstar, which works pretty well. It can download covers and details from Amazon and so on, based on the ISBN (although the latest version in Debian fails to do that properly for some reason). Before deciding on GCstar, I had evaluated multiple solutions, including Koha and custom-based solutions, none of which being simple enough for my uses, which made me settle on GCstar... The full details of the evaluation are in the Koumbit wiki.

Since then I have started looking into e-book readers, and family have pointed me to Calibre, a e-book management software. Now it's not necessarily very good with real libraries, but since I am likely to get such a device in the near future (and therefore accumulate digital books), this looks like a very good choice, especially since it seems to have a more complete interface (especially for batch entering ISBN numbers) and a more robust engine to talk with Amazon and friends. It also seems to be better maintained and have a stronger community.

I am not sure that is so helpful in your case, but I thought I could chime in since, well, I have a small library and most of the work is automated. :) Just need to punch in the ISBN number and choose who to lease the book to (something I will do in a custom field in Calibre). A "standard" barcode reader (that behaves like a keyboard, basically) and judicious use of keyboard shortcuts should do the trick if you are really concerned about speed.

Could this hack be used to protect your ebook purchases so they can't be revoked after the fact 1984 style?

You don't need a jailbreak for that. You just need to remove DRM on the books you purchase. This is easy to do (hint: Apprentice Alf is your friend, and Google knows about him ...), and combined with a tool like Calibre you don't have to worry about losing any of your ebooks ever again.

This is exactly why I made a point of buying an e-reader that supports ePub; I don't want my content tied to anyone's specific platform. (In my case, I went with Kobo because they're a Canadian company, they've got their reader software on every platform I care about, and they use ePub.)

Sure you can use handy tools like calibre to convert between formats, but it can't always do it cleanly... sometimes you get confused tables of contents, or headings are formatted as regular text, for example.

Amazon's moving rapidly towards having monopoly power over ebook sales; this exclusive deal just makes it worse.

Slightly OT, but as many reading this probably care about ebook prices: Try the legal search engine in the open source Calibre. Besides being arguably the best library management software available it's got a comparison search (called Get Books in the toolbar) which is the most comprehensive I've seen. It'll provide hits from a lot of different stores, but you can configure which ones. Or, if you're comfortable with liberating your legally bought books from their DRM shackles, I heard of this guy called Apprentice Alf who can help you, in which case your choice of store and DRM scheme doesn't matter all that much :)

If you're on Linux I recommend the binary install of Calibre as most distros have old-to-archaic versions in their repos.

Since you're familiar with Calibre, why aren't you familiar with Unswindle? There's even a plugin for Calibre to link the two.

I rarely *buy* my ebooks. There's just too much good stuff out there that's price-free, DRM-free, or both.

When I *do* buy an ebook, I buy from Amazon, run it through unswindle+Calibre, and have the text, formatted, with pictures, table of contents, etc, exactly as purchased, in the format(s) I choose, with no DRM.

It's entirely possible to work within the system and still get an officially forbidden result.

if the human race can not make life great on this planet then living in space where being even more efficient and much more benevolent is required to survive will never succeed.

humans are just inherently too stupid and greedy to survive for generations in some space ship or artificial planetoid type thing considering the track record we've made here on earth.

On the other hand, if being not-stupid and not-greedy actually is necessary for sustainable life, how long do you think it will take for the stupid/greedy people to hit the airlocks?

The stupids should actually self-select for attrition, whereas the greedy will most likely be selected as attrition candidates by others.

References:
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, by Robert Heinlein
Freehold, by Michael Z Williamson

Beware, shameless plugs ahead (and they're not even my companies):

Williamson's book (along with many others) is available for FREE at the Baen Free Library! This is a publisher who embraces "piracy" as advertisement (the way it should be!).
Enjoy your free SciFi/Fantasy binge. Ya don't even have to tell 'em I sent ya, and I don't think I would get anything if you did.

Also, if you purchase one of their books in hardback, you get a legally copyable CD full of eBooks along with it - check your local library, the CDs inside are excellent.

I recommend Aldiko for eBook reading on Android, and Calibre on Windows/Mac/Linux.
Sorry, I don't use iOS - so I don't know what reader you would need for that.

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You can use the Calibre application (free from http://calibre-ebook.com/) to load any external documents or ebooks onto the Kindle. You don't have to buy DRM'ed books if you don't want to, as there are lots of non-DRM sources of information out there that are easily converted. My main reason for getting the kindle was because I had exhausted all the technical audiobooks ($$) worth buying and with Calibre I can load almost anything onto the kindle including scientific reports, technical journals, which you can not get in ANY audio book format at any price. What it would not do well for him is poetry (its temporally challenged), mathematics (can't read the symbols), and programming languages (they are not dictionary words) since the text to speech, although its the best I have ever heard, isn't quite perfect.

As others have suggested above that you could simply increase the font size to the maximum until that becomes impractical, and then use the text to speech feature when his eyes get tired, or until he can no longer has good enough vision. It would be the best plan to get him started and familiar with the device before he looses all his vision so that he knows how to navigate the menus. I wish him the best of luck. My Dad is having similar problems but vision is not his main concern at the moment.

Homepage for the EPUB standard.

Why do I recommend EPUB so highly? Besides the fact that it's an open standard, that is? ;) Well, Wikipedia has a good comparison chart of e-book formats versus the e-book readers that are covered. It shows that the only format with a broader range is straight text. (Yes, it even beats out PDF and HTML.)

There is a plug-in available for OO.o and LO called Writer2ePub that will save directly to EPUB, btw. The main support channel is through a MobileRead forum.

May I suggest that you spend some time browsing MobileRead before making any final decisions? In particular, I would like to call your attention to the Calibre, Sigil, and OpenInkpot forums.

Next, there is a package called eLyXer which does a pretty good job of converting LyX files to XHTML. EPUB relies heavily on a subset of XHTML as part of its specification so I've been experimenting with a new toolchain.

I write my documents in LyX to get good looking PDFs, then use eLyXer to get XHTML, then use the import/convert function of Calibre to get a good looking EPUB, then use Sigil to fine tune the final output. Since both eLyXer and the e-book conversion utility packaged as part of Calibre can be called from the command line, it would be possible to automate some of that work pretty easily. I haven't bothered with that as my needs are only for occasional use at the moment.

Another alternative would be to just write the journal in Sigil. That would probably mean abandoning PDFs and paper output entirely, though.

P.S. How come you didn't have an article focussing on Arduino in your initial issue??

Homepage for the EPUB standard.

Why do I recommend EPUB so highly? Besides the fact that it's an open standard, that is? ;) Well, Wikipedia has a good comparison chart of e-book formats versus the e-book readers that are covered. It shows that the only format with a broader range is straight text. (Yes, it even beats out PDF and HTML.)

There is a plug-in available for OO.o and LO called Writer2ePub that will save directly to EPUB, btw. The main support channel is through a MobileRead forum.

May I suggest that you spend some time browsing MobileRead before making any final decisions? In particular, I would like to call your attention to the Calibre, Sigil, and OpenInkpot forums.

Next, there is a package called eLyXer which does a pretty good job of converting LyX files to XHTML. EPUB relies heavily on a subset of XHTML as part of its specification so I've been experimenting with a new toolchain.

I write my documents in LyX to get good looking PDFs, then use eLyXer to get XHTML, then use the import/convert function of Calibre to get a good looking EPUB, then use Sigil to fine tune the final output. Since both eLyXer and the e-book conversion utility packaged as part of Calibre can be called from the command line, it would be possible to automate some of that work pretty easily. I haven't bothered with that as my needs are only for occasional use at the moment.

Another alternative would be to just write the journal in Sigil. That would probably mean abandoning PDFs and paper output entirely, though.

P.S. How come you didn't have an article focussing on Arduino in your initial issue??

It's not that bad, thankfully (but still quite bad). It's easy to convert between ePub and Mobipocket ( http://calibre-ebook.com/ does so rather well and is free), as they're both HTML at the core anyway. The only real issues are book-specific parts like handling pagination or footnotes, where the standards (where there is one) tend to be incompatible extensions to HTML.

Try the Calibre eBook managing / creating software.

I converted some text/pdf texts very nicely for my nook with it.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

"Is the open source community boycotting ebook formats?"

Hardly. Calibre is an excelent converter, library manager and it's compatible with most of the readers out there for syncing. You could try converting from pdf to e-pub with it, although PDF is a lousy input format.

Why not just use Calibre to convert from pdf? It is very easy to use and supports all kinds of formats. See: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Of course, and on a much more personal topic: I am interested in making the book available in an open format (most likely .mobi, which is most compatible among readers).

I have some experience with this as I have produced ~50 professional quality ebooks. I would strongly recommend that you first generate a well-formatted epub. This is an easy format to work with, as it's basically zipped xhtml, and it will also work out-of-the-box with most devices. It's also one of the richest formats when it comes to layout, making it a good basis for converting to other formats.

When you have a proberly formatted epub you can generate a TOC, add metadata and convert to a host of other formats (including mobi/prc) by using the excellent open source library program Calibre. Calibre is also practical for working with epubs, as it can automatically unzip/zip the files for you. For initial epub conversion your best option is probably to generate html + images and then import into Calibre.

If you're stuck or have questions I can also recommend asking the friendly people at Mobileread's epub section, they have lots of experience and share readily: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=179.

Good luck with your book!

I can read a book wherever and whenever I want to. I won't lose a library and have to buy a new thing to read it again if it breaks, the rechargeable battery dies, the lcd goes, I drop it into the lake I'm fishing in, and the many other ways to destroy the device. Hell, I'll never have to wait for the book to recharge, get infected from the online delivery system, or lose a book because the mothership beams it back up.

In Short, a book is an asset, a drm laden electronic device that is owned by the manufacturer t'isnt.

So buy DRM-free books. They're out there. Or read books out of copyright, like those provided by Gutenberg in multiple formats. I'll concede the battery charging point (though eink devices last for weeks at a time on a charge). For the rest, if you're managing your ebook library properly and avoiding DRM or liberating DRM-laden books, the only other possible issues are physical damage that could just as easily ruin a paper book (like dropping it in a lake).

My wife just bought a Kindle. Evidently you can manage up to 6 Kindles where (in theory) you can share eBooks between the managed devices.

It's fairly seamless. I don't have a Kindle, but I have the Kindle app for iOS installed on a couple of iPhones and have used their desktop app on Windows in the past. When you buy a book, you tell Amazon which device should receive it. If you need/want to read it on a different device, you switch over to the "archived items" list, from which you can pull up everything you've ever purchased, and have it sent to you.

As for Amazon's implementation of DRM, go to the last post in this forum thread for a zipfile that has DRM-removal tools for most ebook formats currently in use. Everything I've gotten from Amazon has been decrypted, if necessary (many of their free downloads are plain old Mobipocket files without any DRM). I've also converted them to ePub format so I can read them in iBooks...pretty much just use the Kindle app to buy and download. The aforementioned zipfile includes Calibre plugins to seamlessly import DRM'd Kindle books.

I don't understand why so many people put "Free Book" on the web, but put it in an HTML page with links to the various chapters. Is it too much to ask for the convenience of a single PDF, MOBI, or EPUB I can download to an eReader?

Since it's Creative Commons, Derivative works should be allowed. I took a stab at pulling down all the files with wget and then generating an EPUB using Calibre. Don't claim the format is perfect, this is the first time I've ever tried anything like this. However, it should be readable. If you interested, I've put it up on Google Docs.

they fail to address the matrix of which service and format is support/authorized for which device

Matrix, schmatrix.

Calibre finds, downloads, converts, views, organizes, tweaks, and edits just about every kind of digital book from/into just about every format. And it's free.

So long as you are willing to crack the DRM first, which is morally irreprehensible, but illegal in jurisdictions with stupid laws like the DMCA.

they fail to address the matrix of which service and format is support/authorized for which device

Matrix, schmatrix.

Calibre finds, downloads, converts, views, organizes, tweaks, and edits just about every kind of digital book from/into just about every format. And it's free.

Where do people go when they give up Amazon?

You're kidding, right? Just because Amazon is the biggest online bookseller doesn't mean that you can't find dozens of alternatives with a little research. Heck, that function is now baked right into calibre:

A great feature is "Get Books" which allows you to search for a book by title and author and returns the list of web stores that sell it in ebook form, allowing you to easily find the lowest prices for popular books or search many different places for hard to find ebook editions.

The site's front page has a video with a quick walkthrough of the feature set. There is also a video for the new stuff in version 0.8.

Note: any serious bibliophile or bookworm who isn't using calibre to keep track of their e-book library needs to go check it out, right now. This is the model that puts the user in control, not the vendors.

Where do people go when they give up Amazon?

You're kidding, right? Just because Amazon is the biggest online bookseller doesn't mean that you can't find dozens of alternatives with a little research. Heck, that function is now baked right into calibre:

A great feature is "Get Books" which allows you to search for a book by title and author and returns the list of web stores that sell it in ebook form, allowing you to easily find the lowest prices for popular books or search many different places for hard to find ebook editions.

The site's front page has a video with a quick walkthrough of the feature set. There is also a video for the new stuff in version 0.8.

Note: any serious bibliophile or bookworm who isn't using calibre to keep track of their e-book library needs to go check it out, right now. This is the model that puts the user in control, not the vendors.

Where do people go when they give up Amazon?

You're kidding, right? Just because Amazon is the biggest online bookseller doesn't mean that you can't find dozens of alternatives with a little research. Heck, that function is now baked right into calibre:

A great feature is "Get Books" which allows you to search for a book by title and author and returns the list of web stores that sell it in ebook form, allowing you to easily find the lowest prices for popular books or search many different places for hard to find ebook editions.

The site's front page has a video with a quick walkthrough of the feature set. There is also a video for the new stuff in version 0.8.

Note: any serious bibliophile or bookworm who isn't using calibre to keep track of their e-book library needs to go check it out, right now. This is the model that puts the user in control, not the vendors.

Any unencrypted .mobi ebook, such as those sold by Fictionwise and Webscriptions, and to which applications like Calibre can convert other formats (like ePub) from.

It's not a 'script', it's a full fledged ebook management software that can convert between various formats, download metadata for your ebooks and sync between your device and desktop.

I don't buy DRM-encumbered eBooks. If anyone wants to borrow a book from me, electronic or otherwise, it can be done. Moreover, I can read my ebooks on any device I have that supports them, and can easily convert between formats with calibre.

1) Virtually any unprotected ebook format can be converted to Kindle format. A good free converter is Calibre. Of course, DRM-protected ebooks typically can only be read by the manufacturer's reader.

2) Nook color is more like an underpowered iPad competitor than a Kindle competitor--it can't match Kindle's key features: e-paper and battery life of many days.

3) But it sure is a convenience not to have to worry about a recharge, particularly on a long trip.

4) No, a Kindle is not the device of choice for reading comic books. But it's great for text-based literature.

5) I've got both. Neither gives me eye strain, but the Kindle display is more pleasant to read.

6) In dim light, I'll pull out my iPhone. I don't do so much reading in dim light that the small size of the screen is much of a handicap. But when the light is adequate, I'll put it away and pull out my Kindle. And in full daylight, I'd much rather have the Kindle.

7) I don't carry around a notebook--too heavy. If I'm carrying my iPad for other uses, I might decide to leave my Kindle at home, but I'll miss it--the iPad is simply not as comfortable for straight reading--heavier, thicker, and (as noted below) for straight reading, the touch-screen tends to get in the way. Yes, I'd love a device that was as fast as an iPad, with the vibrant color of an LCD screen plus the clear text and bright light visibility of epaper, with touch screen capability plus physical page-flip buttons, and as thin and as light as a Kindle. Let me know when I will buy one. In the meantime, I will tend to use the best device for the task at hand whenever possible.

8) I don't need a touch screen to read a book. Mostly, I just use the page forward and back buttons. With a Kindle, I can hold it in either hand and access both the page forward and back buttons with my thumb. I can't do this with my iPad (even if it were not uncomfortably heavy), and I find the touch screen often gets in the way, because an accidental brush of my thumb against the edge of the screen can cause an unwanted page flip.

I have a Nook and really like it, it reads pretty much everything I need it to. The Kobo also looks pretty decent, and the new one's fairly cheap. No web browsing on it like the Nook, but honestly I rarely browse on the Nook because it's browser is kind of a joke. It also only works over wifi, so getting the 3g version is kind of a waste, all you can do with it is download books from the Nook store. Check out Calibre - http://calibre-ebook.com/ for managing/converting books, it's a pretty nice piece of software. Also check out Sigil - http://code.google.com/p/sigil/ for editing epub.

Used iTunes? It's like that for books but less bloated. Syncs to many devices, and can scrape RSS feeds from magazines, build them into EPUBs and sync them to an ereader, like a text-based podcast. This works surprisingly well, superior in some ways to reading the same material on the Web.

And it's FLOSS.

http://calibre-ebook.com/about

Borders and Barnes and Noble sell epubs. That have Adobe's DRM attached...but it is easily stripped. You can also use Calibre to convert the epub to other formats.

I've bought a lot of Kindle books from Amazon. The most common format they sell is simply the old Mobipocket format with DRM added. The scripts to strip the DRM are out there (K4MobiDeDRM.pyw), and you can use Calibre to convert to any of a wide variety of other formats should you not like Mobipocket (or should your reader not support it). If you go this route, ActiveState Python 2.x is the preferred distribution to run the scripts. I use this method and convert all my books to have both Mobi and ePub because Stanza on my iPad, which does not support Mobipocket, has some features that the iOS Kindle app lacks (like in-app screen brightness adjust).

There are some mostly image-intensive books that use a different format called Topaz, but that too has been broken, although the conversions often look more like a typical pirated scan/OCR than a good quality ebook. Fortunately, the format is relatively rare, and of course if you are willing to spend some time cleaning it up you can have a nice clean book - there is no chance that you'll lose the text, just that it won't look right.

So what's the open alternative?

I think the Kindle is the alternative (though I wouldn't call it open). From my research it is definitely the best ebook reader currently on the market.

The key is to use it the way you want rather than the way Amazon wants you to use it.

Load up calibre and find the freely available plugins which allow you to strip the DRM from your legally purchased ebooks. You can then back them up to your computer, as well as convert them to any format you like. Should Amazon pull a "we don't want you to have that" on you and delete a book, you simply restore a DRM-free version from your backup.

Legal under the DMCA? I don't know and I don't care.

Another advantage: you can convert to the open EPUB format, edit the HTML to correct mistakes, and then convert back to MOBI format for use on your Kindle. I've done that several times (typos and formatting errors in books drive me nuts).

I finally purchased a Kindle about two months ago once I was satisfied that the DRM/lock-in was easily defeated and I love it. I've loaded it with books I'd previously purchased for Microsoft Reader in LIT format (again only after knowing that the CLIT program would allow me to strip away the DRM) by converting the LIT files to MOBI.

Point of interest, if you can find an ereader app for Android, there is a program called calibre which will happily download entire sites and convert them into the ebook format of your choice. I currently use it to download a couple of broadsheets from australia, as well as the BBC news website. It grabs the site, converts to EPUB and uploads onto my dedicated ereader. In order to customise the sites you want to download, calibre uses pyhthon scripts it calls recipes, which are pretty easily written. It's open source - has a project page on sourceforge - and seems to be a fairly active project. http://calibre-ebook.com/

2. eReader
Though eInk displays are pretty much all the same, anyone have any luck with an eReader that isn't Sony but lets you have flexibility with the device?

I am not exactly sure what your needs are, but with the free ebook manager app Calibre you can put pretty much any of your content on your Sony reader.

If you are looking for more flexibility in how to use stuff you buy from the Sony store, it won't help with that. But you can put your own stuff (and news from the web) on the Sony Reader or many other readers pretty easily with Calibre.

http://calibre-ebook.com/

(Just a happy user.)

There are also non-Sony, non-Amazon, non-B&N e-ink readers, like the Cybook.

http://www.bookeen.com/en/

(I don't have one, it's just the first one that came to mind.)

ePub is modified HTML. Or rather, it's just strict XML with stylesheets, bundled up into a zip file. That's it. If you can make a web page, you can make an ePub.

I find calibre to be a wonderful tool for creating/converting simple ebooks. Runs on Linux/Windows/Mac

http://calibre-ebook.com/

Haven't tried it with anything really complex yet though.

What I really like, is that I can take a Project Gutenberg e-text, and easily convert it from plain text to epub in seconds.

Calibre makes this discussion somewhat moot.
I personally use it to convert between different formats, whether I'm on my netbook, reader, or cellphone.

But it can read non-DRM'd ePubs from other vendors, right?

Correct. If you create an ePub with a program like Calibre and import it into iTunes, the iBook reader will handle it without any difficulty.

Mostly I just want the e-edition of the NYT for my lunch breaks.

You might check out Calibre. It has built-in conversion from web sources to ebooks, so you can download the NYTimes in the morning, sync it to whatever ebook reader you use, and enjoy it on your lunch breaks. It may require a subscription to NYT, but if you want the e-edition you're going to have to buy a subscription anyway.

If/when Apple introduces a 5-7" screen model I might just jump on that. Either way, until large screen (3.2"+) smart phones drop in price quite a bit more, the people with ereaders (i.e. $$$) are going to continue to find it convenient to purchase their books rather than hunt for free copies online.

Don't discount the smaller screen of an iPhone or Android smartphone. Their higher pixel density makes it comfortable to read even on a smaller screen. Most of my reading is fiction and non-fiction/news/technical stuff may not work as well, but if you already have such a device it's worth trying it out before dismissing it.

E-ink at this point is pretty much a failed product with the introduction of the iPad at a similar price point with a boat load of more/better features.

This really depends on the market. E-ink readers are great if all you want to do is read, and honestly that's what a majority of people want (look at the threads on MobileRead. There are constantly "I just want to read!" threads complaining about readers with extra features jacking up prices). The girlfriend has an iPad and it's definitely a cool piece of technology, but IMHO it really fails as an ereader. Apple screwed up by significantly reducing the pixel density of the device, such that I find reading on my iPhone a more enjoyable experience than reading on an iPad. Kindle on iPad is okay, but iBooks is actually pretty shitty for all of its "polish" (which is all just surface -- functionality is terrible, with UI chrome laid out haphazardly, stupid metaphors like showing pages of an open book on the side that don't change their height with the amount you've read into the book, etc). The killer for me is that Stanza will never have an official iPad version (Amazon bought Lexcycle and won't let Stanza compete with the closed Kindle app). Jailbreaking and running FullForce gives a satisfactory experience (as opposed to the native pixel-doubling that makes the text too large and blurry), but that's a hack.

Personally, I like e-ink with my main gripe being a lack of backlight. I just recently got my first e-ink reader so I haven't really had time to sit down and play with it extensively, but I can already say that the readability of the e-ink display is superior to the iPad and that the lack of backlight significantly limits where/when I can use the reader (I can read on my iPhone in bed with the lights out. I can't do that with an e-ink reader or with a traditional paper book). What I don't understand is why nobody has yet done a backlight on e-ink. It should work just fine. I'd even be satisfied with a Timex Indiglo-like backlight, which should work perfectly with e-ink technology. Instead, the industry seems to be moving towards color e-ink (why? You don't need color for black-and-white text, dammit!) rather than fixing the one glaring problem of lacking a backlight.

I think you are correct though, as mobile phones improve we will see ereaders as another service people will more seriously consider spending money on. I think we're 10 years off before most people start considering digital readers over physical copies.

I think your timeframe is a little off. E-reading has been happening on handheld devices for 15 years (I've been doing it for 10). Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, etc are all significantly invested, and I think that it'll be more like 2-5 years befo

PDF is an epic fail if you're rescaling to a new "paper" size. And each reader is, of course, a different size.

More than this, PDF has only recently added text reflow support, and only then if the PDF is properly tagged (most PDFs are not properly tagged). It's not so much that each reader is a different "paper" size, but that reflowable text is vital to support multiple font sizes. You could have a standard 8.5"x11" screen on your reader and still require reflow if you wanted to allow users to choose a larger font size for readability.

PDF is a shit-tier ebook format. Its popularity stems from the fact that most books are laid out in PDF (or an easily-convertible format like .doc/.rtf) prior to going to printers, making it easy for publishers to release an "ebook" version. Users buy it either because they have no other option or because they don't realize that there are better formats out there. For example, ePub is supported on most readers (Kindle excluded, because Kindle doesn't read "ebooks" -- it reads "Kindle books"). ePub has support from Adobe (using Digital Editions), DRM if you want it (Adobe's easily-cracked ADEPT DRM, Apple's FairPlay that hasn't yet been cracked for recent revisions, etc), and is based on XHTML+CSS in a zip container. ePub is even supported by Overdrive for ebook rentals through libraries (check your local library for participation).

Most formats can convert easily back and forth (mobi/prc, epub, lrf, fb2, txt, even rtf) using tools like Calibre (pronounced "cali-ber", not "ca-leebray"). PDF is the exception to the rule and needs to die as an ebook format.

Because it is impossible to pirate books to a Kindle?

It is trivially easy to read pirated books on Kindle. Not that I have done this, mind you, but I hear that there are websites out there with ebook torrents on them, and there's this program you can get to convert them into a Kindle-readable format.

The Kindle device doesn't require DRM, the Amazon bookstore does. These are two separate things that people seem to keep mixing up.

Oh Snap! You told me!

I have an ebook reader that supports PDFs, it's just that PDFs make crappy ebooks.

Maybe there's some ebook reader that supports ODT, but I haven't heard of it. ODT isn't even on this table that describes file format support of various ebook readers.

Epub, on the other hand, is a free and open standard. In any case, people interested in this topic should look into calibre, a cross-platform, open-source program that can convert practically anything to any ebook format (this would include, for example, ODT to EPUB or MOBI).

The conversion software available to ePub is a bit primitive at the moment, but it does exist, from practically any format you can care to name.

Try Calibre: http://calibre-ebook.com/

Now if Sony did not supply such lame software...

Ack. Don't install that crap. And with the Sony readers there's no reason.

Option #1: Connect the reader via USB and drop files onto the drive that appears
Option #2: Use an SD card or Memory Stick. Copy files to the card via your computer and throw the card in your reader
Option #3: Use Calibre, opensource/cross platform software to manage your library and convert / write files to the reader (my favorite)

I think the people designing the Reader hardware realized the software guys would fuck up, and so make it easy to use without installing anything ;-)

At least ePub is an open format with published fileformat descriptions, so you can theorethically make your own converter...

I've considered doing so, since I haven't found one that will do a smooth job of some of my more basic conversions.

As far as conversion is concerned, I'd recommend using calibre -- it's pretty much the ultimate ebook library manager, which supports converting back and forth between many of the common ebook formats and can interface with the majority of ebook readers currently on the market. Open source, free download at http://calibre-ebook.com/

It's a nice little program, in many ways. I like it's library management functions, although they are a bit clunky. (Browsing is a bit hard, duplicates aren't handled well, nor is automatically importing more than one format of the same book) It's had some intermittent problems syncing to my Nook, which makes me leary of doing so. (The entire library tends to disappear on occasion...)

Once a book is in it, I've not had any complaints about it's conversions, but I've had books in some basic formats (HTML, txt) that I just couldn't get it to recognize at all. (Despite the fact that I know it handles them in other cases.)

Still, one of the best general programs around at the moment.

The conversion software available to ePub is a bit primitive at the moment, but it does exist, from practically any format you can care to name.

At least ePub is an open format with published fileformat descriptions, so you can theorethically make your own converter...
ePub is pretty much a renamed .ZIP file, containing an index and content in .xml format, plus cover image(s)

As far as conversion is concerned, I'd recommend using calibre -- it's pretty much the ultimate ebook library manager, which supports converting back and forth between many of the common ebook formats and can interface with the majority of ebook readers currently on the market. Open source, free download at http://calibre-ebook.com/

I use Calibre to convert XXX to/from ePub & mobi, where XXX is nearly any format, not (just) porn. It does a pretty good job at HTML, PDF, RTF, CBR, LIT, PDB - you name it, and has direct support for getting content onto a bunch of different hardware, including phones.

Any other suggestions for this job?

Absolutely. Frankly, I'm surprised at Kindle's popularity given the Reader's existence. For my Sony Reader, I used to just copy the books over in txt format by mounting its drive, now I use calibre to manage my books, including conversion to Sony's LRF format if I feel like it. Calibre is open source, available for both Windows and Linux, and it's really a better piece of software than Sony's bundled library management tool.

I have the discontinued PRS-505 and am very satisfied with it, seems like newer models have made significant improvements, too. We're really seeing very rapid improvement for e-book readers, I think. The 505 is just over 2 years old, already discontinued and replaced with faster, touch-interface, higher capacity devices. Give them 5 years and we'll have an excellent selection of readers available.

And anyone saying that a laptop does everything a reader does is missing the point. Readers have e-ink, but that's not their only advantage. Readers are lighter and thinner than most books and so are a great way to carry some reading material for transport, waiting halls, etc. Plus the battery lasts far longer than that of any computer. Reading in bed is a pleasure with e-book readers.

I use my N800 daily, too ... to play Klondike. The FBReader software is a terrible user interface. A pity, really.

So I've tried to use my laptop. I've tried installing Amazon's Kindle for PC under Wine. It installs but won't run, so I don't know if it's suitable for reading or not.

Calibre seems intended for downloading and feeding data to devices like the Sony reader.

All in all, the laptop doesn't seem to be a good candidate for curling up with a book. If I perch it on my stomach it has a habit of spontaneously loading up Hulu and rotting my brain.

1 and 2 can be done.

Moving ebooks (bought from Amazon) to a new reader from a different company is a matter of finding the tools (search MobiDeDRM) to strip the DRM. They're a bit hard to use if you're not familiar with the command line, but any Slashdotter should have no problems figuring them out. There may be DMCA implications to that, but it's pretty obviously within your fair use rights. When I got my Kindle as a gift, I was a bit worried about the DRM aspect of the product. But beyond the philosophical objection, there practically nothing to worry about in that regard.

Sharing ebooks with your wife is actually beyond simple if you've both got a Kindle. The key would be tying them both to the same Amazon account. Then you can both download any purchase made on that account directly from Amazon. If her reader is a different brand or not tied to the same account, then the tools mentioned above can easily accomplish what you want.

With regards to the third use case you mentioned, so long as the original purchase price for the ebook is less than the cost of the physical book less the resale cost, I could care less if I can resell it. The bigger concern would be the inability to buy used books.

I've come to look at the Kindle as a fully-featured eBook reader that also has an optional DRM-encumbered store which can be safely ignored if it annoys me sufficiently. Thanks to tools like Calibre, it's pretty trivial to convert ePubs you've bought elsewhere to Mobipocket for use on the Kindle (provided they're not DRM-protected). So at any time I can permanently turn off the wireless functionality and buy books from other sources which can easily be converted to work with the Kindle.