Tue
May 12th

eBooks

You’ve probably seen the Kindle, Amazon’s reading device.  I live in the UK, and I have massive Kindle envy because Amazon don’t sell it outside of the US.  That doesn’t mean we all need to wait for Amazon to launch localised Kindles, however.  eBooks have been with us for a long time: Project Gutenberg’s founder Michael Hart has been exploring eBooks since 1971.  I used to read books on my Palm IIIe at university to save money.  The old Palm’s low-glare monochrome screen was good for reading, and I was happy with it.

Since my experience with eBooks on Palm I’ve tried many devices.  I’m currently using an iPhone with the Stanza app.  There’s a few things I like about Stanza: it’s easy to change the brightness by dragging across the screen, there’s a lot of options for fonts and sizes, and page changes are fast.  In terms of comfort, however, reading on the iPhone isn’t optimum.  It’s equivalent to my old Palm but I imagine the Kindle or Sony Reader offer better experiences.

Content and Formats

The main problem with eBooks right now is finding content.  This is a solved problem is you’re using a Kindle in the US, and Sony has their own store too.  Sony’s device can use books from other sources too.  If you’re not using one of these devices, it’s not always clear what books will work for you: some online shops don’t display their formats known.  Others specifically note the format and DRM used.  And even when they display formats, what do they mean and what can your reader support?  If you’re using Stanza and you buy a DRM’d ePub, will it work?  (The answer is: not currently).

Sony’s products support DRM, most notably for ePub.  If you buy a book in the DRM’d ePub format, Adobe’s Digital Editions will open it and manage the DRM.  Interestingly, ePub is basically a load of XHTML, so it’s an easy format for developers to support.

Another popular format is .mobi (or Mobipocket), which is an extension of the PalmDOC format.  It can be DRM’d.  As far as I know, this doesn’t work on the Sony Reader, but it could be converted, and the Kindle does support it.

You’ll probably also come across LIT.  Microsoft Reader will open these files, which is on PocketPC and Windows Mobile devices.  Stanza’s desktop app allows me to open LIT files and send them to my iPhone; I think the Sony Reader will need the files converted.

There are many other popular formats.  Books are distributed in RTF, plain text and PDF, and the frightening list here contains more.  Generally, if you’re sent a LIT, ePub or mobi file, it’ll work well on a hardware reader (or with minimal conversion through desktop software).  I’ve had a lot of luck with ePub and LIT with Stanza and iPhone.  PDF has been a problem: yes, I can read them, but they just don’t work very well on hardware readers.  Plain text and RTF can lose some of the elegance of a well presented LIT or ePub book.

Converting Files

You’ll be converting formats a lot.  Calibre works well, and Stanza’s desktop app will try to adapt content for your iPhone.  Calibre will run on Windows, Mac OS and Linux.

Yes, you can strip ePub DRM.  The process is quite technical, and will become more difficult when Adobe fixes a security flaw in Adobe Digital Editions.  It may be illegal in your country to do this.

Finding eBooks

I can only list sites I’ve had luck with, and my list is generally UK-centric.  Stanza has a built-in list of sources as well.

  • Fictionwise - US-based, but has a lot of content.  I haven’t bought anything form here, but they’re clear about formats and DRM.
  • WHSmith eBook Shop - very clear about DRM, but mix in audiobooks with results so keep an eye on the format you’re purchasing.
  • Waterstones - heavily promoted the Sony Reader in the UK.  Not clear enough about DRM and formats, but the books I’ve got from there have been ePub DRM’d and open on my Mac and PC with Digital Editions.  Their advanced search lets you limit results to eBooks, but this sometimes decides to include regular books.
  • Penguin - Similar to Waterstones, selling DRM’d ePub
  • Pragmatic Programmers - the template for all future eBook sites.  Once you buy a book you can download multiple copies in PDF, ePub and mobi with no DRM.  Only really suitable for software and designer folks, but if all eBook sites were done this way life would be simple.
  • O’Reilly - Also sell un-DRM’d eBooks that’ll work on just about any device.
  • Project Gutenberg - Copyright expired books

Blogs

Conclusions

I hope this article has clarified the world of eBooks.  At first all the formats and DRM are hugely frustrating, but the growing dominance of .mobi and ePub should make things simpler, and publishers who support DRM-free books will ultimately create a world where anyone can understand and use eBooks.

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