Do you read eBooks? Do you know what an eBook is? And if you do read eBooks, do you know that there’s more available to you than what’s offered on your Kindle, Nook or iPad?
Come, take a journey with me, and let me introduce you to the world of eBooks as I experience it…
What is an eBook?
Okay, some of you may already know the answer–but then there’s likely a few of you that either don’t, or simply don’t understand the definition in the same way as I do. Skip ahead to the next section if you want, but I’d recommend reading what follows so that we’re on the same page…
The easiest way to define an eBook–referred to and spelled as e-book, eBook, e-Book, ebook, digital book, and even e-edition–is an electronic book; sounds simple, right? Well…
eBooks come in a variety of formats, and are available to read on a wide array of devices; some of the most popular ways of acquiring and reading eBooks involve using proprietary mobile devices and software, such as mobile phones and tablet computers–like iOS devices (iPhones, iPods and iPads), “eReaders” (like Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle), and various Android devices (of which there are versions of the Nook and Kindle). For the Android devices–which are growing in number–there is an ever growing number of stores, libraries and apps available (like Nook & Kindle apps–these guys are serious about selling you books!); there’s even, of course, Google Play Books for Android devices certified by Google–that’s a whole other mess not worth delving into now (the whole Android device that doesn’t have Google… I’m not gonna get into that… but if you’ve got one, and feel like you got screwed, you’re not; trust me.)
…but, there’s more than just the eBooks on iTunes, Nook and Kindle–there’s books available on other eReaders (Sony’s one of the biggest); books available as PDF; books available as MOBI; EPUB; HTML; even plain ol’ ASCII TXT-files! And then, there’s the books available at your public or school libraries, which likely use something like OverDrive, Adobe Digital Editions, FollettShelf…
…is your head swimming, yet?
In short, the world of eBooks is much larger than what most of you have likely experienced. Wanna travel a little further down this rabbit hole? Continue reading…
Where to get eBooks
If you have some sort of eReader or tablet, you’ve likely discovered whatever bookstore or market app that was included. Awesome. Now, forget about those–because there is SO MUCH MORE!
Hop onto your favorite search engine and try to find places for free eBooks. Scared? Don’t be. Here, let me Google that for you.
On that first page, you’re likely to find Amazon and Barnes & Noble, sure; but keep looking… one of the top results should be Project Gutenberg–the first place I’d like to introduce you to. (But don’t forget to check out some of the other results at a later date!)
Project Gutenberg is–in a very simple definition–a collection of eBooks that are in the Public Domain; this means that all of the books in the collection are no longer subject to copyright, and are freely available for distribution to everyone without fear of someone calling foul on sharing something that should have been paid for. (This is a very basic in-a-nutshell sort of explanation; there is just a little more to it. Example: though books at gutenberg.org may be free of copyright in the U.S., someone may still have claim in another territory–the same is true in reverse for Gutenberg texts located in other countries. Also, there are a few books in the Project Gutenberg collection that are still under copyright, but have been given permission for distribution.)
eBooks available at Project Gutenberg are available in a variety of formats–all in TXT, many in MOBI, EPUB & HTML. Some eBooks even include images from the original text, making the experience even more delightful and enjoyable for younger audiences. On occasion these texts may fall victim to poor formatting or grammatical error–some accidental and some intentional (say, one eBook is copied from an original misprint); those with issues are usually caught and revised–some books are revised multiple times and even split into differing editions!
While we’re on the subject of Project Gutenberg and the public domain, let’s take a little side-step into a different type of “eBook”; let’s talk about the audio-book…
…chances are that you may have stumbled across audio-books on your eReader or tablet. If not, you’re missing out–that is, unless you don’t like audio-books. Oh, what’s an audio-book? Think back to “books-on-tape”…
Yes, you can get free audio-books, too. Check out my favorite collection of free audio-books at LibriVox. LibriVox is an organization of volunteers with a goal similar to that of Project Gutenberg–in fact, most of the texts being read at LibriVox come from Project Gutenberg. LibriVox recordings are available in multiple formats–MP3, M4B & Ogg–and can be recorded by single-reader, multiple-reader, and even cast-ensembles!
How to read eBooks
Okay, so you’ve now discovered where to get these eBooks; but how to read them? Well, this can, unfortunately, get complicated. No!–Don’t give up! Keep reading, I’ll tell you a few ways that’ll work, I promise!
If you’ve got your eReader/tablet and have read books from whatever initial store that was provided, you may already be halfway there! Now the problem might only exist in getting these free books that I’ve rambled on about onto your device. Before we go there, however, lets talk on the PC side of things, just in case you don’t have a neat little toy to read eBooks on. (and, yes–I’m sorry–when I say PC, I am speaking primarily about Windows. Awesome alternatives and solutions do exist for Macs and Linux; I’m just a Windows user… some of the solutions I’ll be giving–or similar ones–do exist on these platforms, so you may want to pay attention.)
TXT and HTML files you should already know how to handle–TXT in any text editor or word-processor; HTML in your browser–but what about those other formats? EPUB, MOBI, and PDF? PDFs you should also know–Adobe Acrobat Reader; if you don’t have it already, you must not be on the Internet, much. EPUBs and MOBIs–ah, the fun part.
EPUBs can be read by several programs, but I’ll recommend Adobe Digital Editions. Why? Well, chances are that you’ll soon be playing with books from other sites/sources that require ADE for borrowing/lending purposes; there are alternatives that have the ability to handle EPUBs with ADE encryption, but we might as well just use Digital Editions. Digital Editions also has a “library” feature where you can see all of the ebooks you’ve collected. You can get Adobe Digital Editions from http://www.adobe.com/products/digital-editions/download.html.
MOBIs, too, can be read by several programs, but I’ll go ahead and jump to the chase–Calibre. Why? Mainly because I’m going to introduce you to Calibre–or calibre, as it’s not supposed to be capitalized–shortly. Honestly, if you don’t want to get into the fun of advanced eBook management, you may just want to stick to grabbing EPUBs.
Did you grab some other format? Yeah, the answer is likely going to be calibre, again. Oh, and how am I going to recommend getting all these eBooks organized and copied over onto your device? Yeah… calibre. But, first…
Reading eBooks on your device
If you have a generic eReader or Android device, simple file copying should work. You may wish to consult your device’s manual on how to do it. In theory, it’s as simple as connecting the device, your PC seeing it as a “mass storage” or “media device” and offering up a window in which to copy your files to and fro. Other eReaders–plain Jane ones, like the original Kindle, etc.–may also allow you to email your eBook to the device; again, check with your manual, as it may only support a certain file-type. Now, how to read the file…
For plain eReaders, you should be golden after reading that last paragraph; if not, read the manual, search the web, and skip down to my section on calibre.
For iOS devices, you’ll need to seek out programs like Stanza in the iTunes store to support EPUBs and MOBIs; or you can skip down to my section on calibre. calibre is capable of syncing with iTunes, and converting the documents into a format suitable for iBooks. Other than that… Um… Internet search engines are your friend–sorry, I’m an Android guy.
For Android devices, I recommend either Aldiko or FBreader. Other apps are available–one other I use is OverDrive, as it’s used by the local public library. The last time I used OverDrive, I found some issue in importing some EPUBs; I don’t know if this issue still exists–and aside from that, your mileage may vary. FBreader can handle EPUBs, MOBIs. TXT, HTML, PDF and a few others–extended support is available through plugins. Personally, I use Aldiko as my primary eBook reader.
For Android devices like the Nook Color and Kindle Fire–I’m unsure, but believe that the aforementioned apps exist in your respective app stores/markets. Otherwise there are some awesome communities out there that will give you instructions on side-loading these apps onto your device.
…now for the more advanced topics…
Introducing calibre
Ah, calibre, how I love you… (BTW, it’s pronounced “cal-i-ber“, even though the -libre part does get inspiration from “libre”, meaning free.)
First, let me get back to those of you using Macs and running different flavors of Linux–yes, calibre is available for you! And for the latter, the developer is a Linux user–I’m not sure of what distro…
Okay, so what the heck is “calibre” and why have I been going on about it? calibre is a little bit of everything–it actually boasts being “The One Stop Solution to All Your E-Book Needs”; a statement which is quite honest, in my opinion. Initially started as a means to sync his first eReader to his PC, calibre developer Kovid Goyal turned his goal into managing and converting an ever growing mess of eBooks into a well organized digital-library; and he’s added several other features along the way. The simplest way to say what calibre is and what it does is to quote the bullet-list on calibre’s about page:
- Library Management
- E-book conversion
- Syncing to e-book reader devices
- Downloading news from the web and converting it into e-book form
- Comprehensive e-book viewer
- Content server for online access to your book collection
Sound like fun? If so, let’s press on; if not–that’s pretty much the end of my ramblings on eBooks for now…
Installing calibre
…it’s quick and easy! Head on over to calibre-ebook.com and download a copy. Personally, I use the 64-bit Windows version. (remember, I said I was a Windows user–Win7, to be specific–so I can’t speak on installation on other systems.)
When you run the install you’ll be asked where to create your new library. The default location will be under your user profile; I eventually ran into an issue with hitting the long file-names/file-path limit–so, I recommend creating a directory in your root folder (ie: C:\Calibre Library\).
After calibre has installed you can launch and see it’s rather pretty interface–me, yeah that was the first thing I changed. To change the look of calibre, mouse over to the >> and an option for preferences should appear. Click, go to Look and Feel, and make your changes–I chose to switch the UI style to “System Default”; layout to “Narrow”; Disable Animations; deselect splash screen; Icon size “Small”. If you make these changes, you’ll be prompted to restart.
Adding eBooks to calibre
Up in the top left, you’ll see an option to add books–if you click the icon, the default method of manually selecting single or multiple books from a single directory opens; if you click the drop-down, however, you’ll see there’s more than one way to add a book. For the first time user who wants to jump right in and add all the books they’ve collected, you might want to use the option “Add books…(Multiple books… every ebook file is a different book)”.
Sweet! Now you’re books are in a library! Now what?
Syncing books from calibre to your device
All of this info is available at: http://manual.calibre-ebook.com/faq.html#device-integration; extended help can be found at: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=166.
For iOS devices:
There are ways of going about this using your home network, via running calibre’s “web-server”–which is easy–but I’ll venture a guess that you’d rather go through iTunes. The process is simple, but getting there goes through some hoops that I really don’t want to type (or copy/paste). Instead, check out the topic at the MobileReads Forum: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118559.
For Android devices (and Kindle Fire):
Believe it or not, it should be as simple as plug in the device and start syncing where many Android devices can be seen as a USB Mass Storage Device by the PC. If this isn’t the case, make sure that you’ve enabled USB Mass Storage mode on your device–if it’s capable (this feature seems to be disappearing with the advent of JellyBean. Ability does still exist, you’ll just have to search the ‘net on how to do so). Also, check to see if there are specific drivers for your Android device to enable this (uncommon, but not entirely unusual). If this still doesn’t work, there’s other ways–keep reading.
For completely generic eReaders and a few name brands:
You should be able to have an ability in where you can connect the device as a “storage” device to your PC–check your manual; if so simply plugging the device in (and enabling whatever you need to for USB/storage mode) should work. If not, keep reading.
For nearly every device with WiFi and some sort of web-browser:
There’s always the option of enabling calibre’s web-server. The calibre web-server will not be able to reach the outside world unless you enable it to–and if you don’t know how to do that, then don’t worry, because you haven’t and likely don’t wanna know how. Enabling the web-server will give you the ability to use your device browser to pull up a page on your PC, displaying all of the books in your library. Don’t fear this–it’s one of the cooler features of calibre!
In the calibre toolbar, click connect/share and select Start Content Server (a firewall pop-up will likely open asking you if you want to allow calibre access; yes, you do). Click the connect/share button again, and you’ll see that the Content Server menu option now displays your PC’s IP address and a port number. Example–it may say something like 192.168.56.1, port 8080. Enter that address as 192.168.56.1:8080 in your eReader’s browser. Woot! Access to your library.
This method will only work if the PC you’re using to host calibre and the device you’re wanting to use are connected to the same network. (That should go without saying, but… There are those who may not understand… which kind of reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0zt4opqL18.)
If none of that stuff worked…
Head on over to the MobileRead forums: http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=234. Chances are that an answer lies there.
Advanced uses / extending calibre
Okay, so we’ve gotten eBooks, started to organize them, and figured out ways of putting them on our favorite device–hopefully. Now what? Well, do you remember that I had mentioned something about calibre having a community of developers? Why not head on out and find some of the neat plugins available for calibre which may enhance your experience; I’d recommend taking some time to get yourself better acquainted with calibre first… you know… just to get more comfortable…
…but if you want to press on…
If you’re an uber-geek and already have a web-server running on your PC
…then you probably liked seeing calibre’s server, and wished that you could keep it running all the time; well you can! But… the only way to keep calibre’s server running is either by running it via command-line or running the main program with the server on at startup. Hmm. That’s a little heavy on the resources, and, well, you’ve already got a web-server running… If you’re geeky enough, you could write your own interface, or install one that’s already available! (For me, I chose the latter, because while I am smart enough to know what Apache is, and have an installation running, I’m not that creative.)
There are a couple different options available, but the two I’ve played with–and currently use–are COPS and CalibrePHP.
CalibrePHP is very good for desktop browsing; unfortunately it’s no longer in development–but, hey the code is open! I have seen a couple versions on github, but believe that their developers have stopped active work as well. I’d like to offer up which versions I’ve combined; but I can’t remember where I got them…
COPS is awesome if you’re using an eReader/app that makes use of OPDS. COPS is lightweight, and its browser interface is fairly appealing to the eye. Development for COPS is very active, and the code is available on github.
If you like reading newspapers/magazines
…then you might want to check out the recipes for pulling articles from the web and publishing them as an eBook. I’ve toyed with making two such recipes, one half-way works, the other, not so much, where the newspaper made changes to requiring subscription access. Your mileage may vary; but there are over 1000 recipes already included!
If you want to convert your Kindle book to a different format
…whoa… hang on there. While this can be done, in most cases you’re talking about needing to break DRM; something which calibre won’t do out of the box, and something that you won’t get support for. I will say that it can be done…
…but I’m not posting that here…
Learn more about eBooks, calibre, and how to create a digital library that would be the envy of your public library
Head over to the MobileRead Forums, which also hosts a slough of free eBooks–all legitimate, DRM free and either released in the public domain or under creative commons.
Also, check out the calibre blog for various tips, tricks and feature announcements.
…more adventures in my experiences with eBooks will be posted soon.
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