"High explosives and electricity, woo!"
Aight, it's time for Ask The Internets.
Here's the deal yo. Like many people who are as addicted to electronics as I am, I am thinking to myself "Self, books take up space, but ebooks only take up hard drive space. I need to start switching to ebooks."
I've been reading ebooks on my phone for a longass time, because it's incredibly handy to have a few dozen books in your pocket when you take public transit. I used MobiPocket on a couple of my older phones, and I'm using Dorian on my current phone (a Nokia N900). I also have Stanza on my iPod and iPad, and love it.
The thing is, I've mostly been using these for Ye Olde Publick Domaine. And there are a lot of great public domain books to read, especially for a literature nerd like me. Project Gutenberg makes it easy to get these in epub format, which any reader with its salt (meaning, not Kindle) can read.
Now, I'm thinking I want to start actually buying books. I want to reread The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion for example, since I haven't read those since high school. I'm sure it's possible to pirate those, but I get a decent paycheck and when I can afford to spend money on getting things legally, I prefer to. There's a bunch of other copyrighted books I'd like to read without taking up space on my shelves or running back and forth to the library.
What I want is a good place to buy ebooks such that I can read them on my iPod and iPad with an app, preferably Stanza. Epub format is preferred, since Dorian on my phone can also read those. I don't want to buy a dedicated eReader, since I already have nice electronic devices and I don't tend to read in bright enough sunlight to cause problems.
Originally, I was thinking of the Sony eReader store, since their eReader is one of the most flexible out there in terms of formats. But ... yeah, I'm not giving my personal info to Sony, especially my credit card.
Then I thought about the Nook store, since Barnes & Noble has done an excellent job of supporting their brick-and-mortars with their ebook reader. I'm also impressed at how open and hackable their Android-based color ereader is. But then I looked at the Nook app on the iTunes store and discovered it's buggy and tends to lose features with every update. This is not acceptable to me. And I couldn't find a clear answer on what format their books are in or get a good feel for how hard it would be to make them readable on Stanza.
Kindle is right out. I will not buy ebooks from a company with a history of stealing purchased material from its customers without their knowledge or consent. They say they won't do it again, but let's get real here. It's a company, and their license agreement gives them control. No thanks.
I looked into Kobo, which has an app that as far as I can tell is second only to Stanza in popularity. Their "supported ereaders" list only lists hardware ereaders, not apps. I'm not entirely sure whether their DRMed books can be read on Stanza. Are they a source worth grabbing a new app for?
I looked at Google Books, but their app appears to be as buggy and poorly released as the Nook app, and there's a limit to how much of my info I want to give to Google.
I looked at Fictionwise, but they seem to be geared more toward less-mainstream authors. Which is cool and I'm glad they do that, but I need a store that carried writers like Tolkien.
I found BooksOnBoard, and they seem to have a decent selection, but they imply some weird kind of copy/print DRM on their stuff. I'm not planning to copy or print them -- unless they include syncing to multiple mobile devices as copying. Since I'd want my books on two or three different devices depending on what I'm doing, that might be a dealkiller.
So what say you, internets? Anyone know a good source for buying ebooks for Stanza or another solid app? Or am I being picky enough that nobody can help me?
Edited to add: Just realized I forgot an obvious option: iBooks. I like Apple's hardware but in terms of their software I prefer stuff by people who are not as pro-censorship and pro-DRM. I wasn't impressed with the app when I tried it, either, and I don't see Apple being open enough to sell books I can easily read in stanza.
At this point I would like to note that the book in my icon up there is volume 1 of a 2nd ed. Compact OED.
Here's the deal yo. Like many people who are as addicted to electronics as I am, I am thinking to myself "Self, books take up space, but ebooks only take up hard drive space. I need to start switching to ebooks."
I've been reading ebooks on my phone for a longass time, because it's incredibly handy to have a few dozen books in your pocket when you take public transit. I used MobiPocket on a couple of my older phones, and I'm using Dorian on my current phone (a Nokia N900). I also have Stanza on my iPod and iPad, and love it.
The thing is, I've mostly been using these for Ye Olde Publick Domaine. And there are a lot of great public domain books to read, especially for a literature nerd like me. Project Gutenberg makes it easy to get these in epub format, which any reader with its salt (meaning, not Kindle) can read.
Now, I'm thinking I want to start actually buying books. I want to reread The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion for example, since I haven't read those since high school. I'm sure it's possible to pirate those, but I get a decent paycheck and when I can afford to spend money on getting things legally, I prefer to. There's a bunch of other copyrighted books I'd like to read without taking up space on my shelves or running back and forth to the library.
What I want is a good place to buy ebooks such that I can read them on my iPod and iPad with an app, preferably Stanza. Epub format is preferred, since Dorian on my phone can also read those. I don't want to buy a dedicated eReader, since I already have nice electronic devices and I don't tend to read in bright enough sunlight to cause problems.
Originally, I was thinking of the Sony eReader store, since their eReader is one of the most flexible out there in terms of formats. But ... yeah, I'm not giving my personal info to Sony, especially my credit card.
Then I thought about the Nook store, since Barnes & Noble has done an excellent job of supporting their brick-and-mortars with their ebook reader. I'm also impressed at how open and hackable their Android-based color ereader is. But then I looked at the Nook app on the iTunes store and discovered it's buggy and tends to lose features with every update. This is not acceptable to me. And I couldn't find a clear answer on what format their books are in or get a good feel for how hard it would be to make them readable on Stanza.
Kindle is right out. I will not buy ebooks from a company with a history of stealing purchased material from its customers without their knowledge or consent. They say they won't do it again, but let's get real here. It's a company, and their license agreement gives them control. No thanks.
I looked into Kobo, which has an app that as far as I can tell is second only to Stanza in popularity. Their "supported ereaders" list only lists hardware ereaders, not apps. I'm not entirely sure whether their DRMed books can be read on Stanza. Are they a source worth grabbing a new app for?
I looked at Google Books, but their app appears to be as buggy and poorly released as the Nook app, and there's a limit to how much of my info I want to give to Google.
I looked at Fictionwise, but they seem to be geared more toward less-mainstream authors. Which is cool and I'm glad they do that, but I need a store that carried writers like Tolkien.
I found BooksOnBoard, and they seem to have a decent selection, but they imply some weird kind of copy/print DRM on their stuff. I'm not planning to copy or print them -- unless they include syncing to multiple mobile devices as copying. Since I'd want my books on two or three different devices depending on what I'm doing, that might be a dealkiller.
So what say you, internets? Anyone know a good source for buying ebooks for Stanza or another solid app? Or am I being picky enough that nobody can help me?
Edited to add: Just realized I forgot an obvious option: iBooks. I like Apple's hardware but in terms of their software I prefer stuff by people who are not as pro-censorship and pro-DRM. I wasn't impressed with the app when I tried it, either, and I don't see Apple being open enough to sell books I can easily read in stanza.
At this point I would like to note that the book in my icon up there is volume 1 of a 2nd ed. Compact OED.