The Next Best Book Club discussion

So I got the B&N Nook for Christmas and was extremely excited about it; I actually prefer physical books but a severe lack of space and an anti-book crazed step mother made the idea of putting all my books into a compact little space for now a very attractive option. So I got the Nook and immediately started searching through the ebooks and was actually a little dismayed at the selection. Anyone else have this problem with the current ebook selection?


Their classics selection is decent but even that seems to have some glaring omissions in what is available. I couldnt find anything (or hardly anything) by Saul Bellow, Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, or Anthony Burgess (INCLUDING A Clockwork Orange!).

The option of modern writers seems even more disappointing. Margaret Atwood? Only the Handmaid's Tale and maybe one other of her books available. Jose Saramago (A Nobel Prize winning author!)? Nothing!

It really seems that outside of best sellers you're going to be quite disappoointed.

And, to top it all off, the non-fiction section is dismal at best, especially in the science section. I mean, ONE BOOK by Carl Sagan? The hell?

I'm still glad I got the Nook, don't get me wrong, but am I the only one shocked by the selection for ebooks right now? Does anyone know how certain books are made into ebook form and why it is that some authors are so glaringly absent? Is there an actual reason these authors arent present or is it just a matter of someone getting around to including them? I'm rather ignorant to the processes involved in making ebooks available and am rather curious, so if anyone could enlighten me I'd appreciate it.

x-posted

Jacqueline,

First, let me say I love that you are looking for Saramago and Nabokov! Great taste :)

Second, does the Nook allow you access to ALL ebooks? Or just the ones that B&N has picked up? I havent heard too many people discuss a lack of selection with the Kindle or Sony ereader, but perhaps that is because they are reading best sellers? I cannot answer that....

I do know that some authors just are not printing in ebooks.... Just because the book gets published does not mean it is will automatically become downloadable, I think.

Anyone one else know for sure?

I got a Sony Reader for Christmas and have had trouble finding certain books for download. I wanted to download some Nabokov over the weekend but when I searched on Vladimr Nabokov I got several pages of stuff by Robert Louis Stevenson. A search for Lolita gave me stuff with Lolita in the title but not the one by Nabokov. I tried Pnin but just got books about pain. That's when I gave up. The Sony uses Google Books for downloads and I don't think you can download from B&N or Amazon to it. I'm enoying the Reader but being limited in what I can read on it is frustrating at best. Hopefully it's just a matter of getting through the legal maneuvering with authors and publishers so the selection can expand.

Hey, I got the Sony Reader for Xmas too, I like it but as with the others, am limited by what Borders and Google has on their sites. Unfortunately I found some of the same titles cheaper with the other services but obviously cannot download them onto mine. It's a pain, but I love that I can bring it with me everywhere! I think because the whole ebook thing is new, they're trying to get the publishers on board. For now, I'll read what they have and get the others on paper!

Shelly - I didn't realize you could download e-books from Borders to the Sony Reader. How do you go about that and how do you get just the e-books on the Borders site?

There are other sites besides BN's that you can use. Fictionwise.com has a huge selection. If you're looking for books where the copyright has expired use Project Gutenberg. Allromanceebooks.com has a good stock of romance novels.

I also received the Sony Reader for Christmas. I have used the Borders site. It works similarly to iTunes. You have to download the library, etc. I haven't had a lot of time to explore what is out there in regards to ebooks, but I'm looking forward to checking out all of these sites!

When I first got my Kindle I noticed there was a lack of selection in the older books. Having had my Kindle now a year, they have definitely grown. Maybe as Barnes and Noble hass just begun the endeavor, within a short time their selection will grow as well.

You may also want to check into www.booksonboard.com which is a large online e-book store. Good luck!!

I got my Sony Reader just before Christmas. I have was a little disappointed in the selection. When I looked for specific books, they were almost never available. There are however tons of books that are available, and I have it filled with enough books to keep me busy for quite a while. I pulled quite a few off of gutenberg. I am hoping by the time I read everything on my reader there will be tons more eooks available.

Dan- Borders is who supports the ereader that comes along with the reader, so it's not necessarily something different than the ebook store. I did however find out that you can't use Borders gift cards to buy ebooks.

Ralph and Dalene - thanks for putting up the other sites, I hadn't gotten as far as searching for other places to buy books, I thought I was just stuck with the eReader store!

Kindle has dramatically increased in their classic section. I found a lot of Russian lit! What's great is the Kindle can upload basically any document into the reader.

The Nook was neck and neck with the Kindle in a side-by-side comparison. The article went with Kindle due to Nook's errors and slow page processing (etc).

I'd say wait a while and B&N is bound to increase their library. Check out the other websites people mentioned and then look at what the Nook Support says:
A number of nook features apply only to eBooks you purchase through Barnes & Noble and that are stored in your online digital library: bookmarks, highlighting, notes, lending, rating, recommending, and cross-platform reading. You can read other eBooks on your nook by placing them in the my documents folder using the USB connection to your computer. See our nook Tech Specs page for a list of nook-supported ePub, PDB, and PDF files.

Here's the specs:
From Barnes & Noble,
Fictionwise & eReader
EPUB
PDB
PDF
Other Sources
EPUB (Non or Adobe DRM)
PDB (Non DRM)
PDF
Graphics: JPG, GIF, PNG, BMP
Audio: MP3

Brittany, maybe those people who've already gotten the nooks ordered them well before you were looking at them? I think they were available for pre-order in November, and they're probably releasing them to who ordered them first. That'd be my guess.

Hi,
Paul Rix here, if you are looking for good e-books check out Authors on Line web site, there are 7 or 8 hundred on there. All genres, authors from all over the world, about the only thing not on there is a gardening book and at the publishers request I'm working on that.
For all of you fantasy fans check out 'the cloak of magic' from Sue Rule, it is one of the best of this genre around. There are biogs. and auto biogs, thrillers, crime, all sorts, even books about Jacko!
Yes, I'm an authors on line author, it is like one big family, we all help each other out when and if we can. Check it out, I think you just might get a surprise as to how good a lot of the books are.
All the best, and good reading,
Paul Rix, [oldgeezer:]

also try ebooks.com, planetebooks.com and feedbooks.com

I have a Kindle and I haven't had a problem finding the books that I wanted.

Lori wrote: "Jacqueline,

First, let me say I love that you are looking for Saramago and Nabokov! Great taste :)

Second, does the Nook allow you access to ALL ebooks? Or just the ones that B&N has picked ..."

Well, thank you! I was quite disappointed I couldnt find either of them!

As of right now I am only downloading ebooks from the B&N site because its the simplest way to get them for me, but I've done searches for ebooks on non-B&N sites and find the same exact omissions. Authors who I could only find one or two books from have the same one or two books on all the sites :/

I wonder if there is some sort of "recommendation site" where I could give my input on which books should become electronic ;)

I have a Kindle and a nook and the ebook selection limitation is, in my opinion, driven by ebook availability in general, not by Kindle or nook having more or less selection than their competitors. I too have looked for books (including Saramago and Nabokov) and in many instances, have found that the authors or their estates have not given approval for the books to be available in ebook format. Another issue is that for many of the older books, there is a dispute between whether the authors or the publishers have the right to make an ebook available. From what I have read, many authors want to make their books available (which makes sense -- no additional work on their part and they get more income) but the publishers are claiming that the authors sold the ebook rights to the publisher as part of the original book deal.

The biggest difference I have seen between Kindle and nook has been in pricing for ebooks -- many titles are available on both platforms but the cost is different. Feedbooks.com is a terrific source for free books (Amazon has not put all public domain books on their site so you can find many more at feedbooks). There are other sites as well (e.g., gutenberg) that also have free books.

I got a Sony Reader for Christmas as well, it's pink! I've only been downloading the free public domain books to begin with, because I have so many physical books owned TBR and I want to save money. One site I love for finding classics is manybooks.net it's easy to use and has plenty of authors I enjoy on there, such as LM Montgomery and Jane Austen as well as the Brontes! :-)

Brittany, it isn't illegal! Many of the classics have had their public domain released. Lemme find the exact rules. Star Trek the Next Generation had to do some research on it when they were doing the Sherlock Holmes Holodeck episode with Data.

Wiki entry:
Geordi asks the holodeck to make a Sherlock Holmes villain that can defeat Data. The resulting story mixes characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and Sherlock Holmes; due to differences in UK (in which a work enters the public domain 50 years after the author's death) and United States (75 years after publication for works before 1978) copyright law Lane and the producers of the episode erroneously believed the Holmes characters to be in the public domain, when they were in fact still owned by the estate of their creator, Arthur Conan Doyle.

Most e-book websites with free books (especially Google books) observe the public domain laws.

Yay to old books in the public domain!

Also, there are a few authors who publish under the CC license and make their ebooks available for free. Two that I know of are Cory Doctorow and Peter Watts. The ebooks are available at their website.

Brittany wrote: "I saw some recent -- within the last 10 years -- books on there, such as PS, I Love You, so that's why I asked. I didn't understand the whole public domain thing. Makes me kind of won..."

Well, I'm not sure about others, but Cory Doctorow believes that the more people who've read his work, the more fans he can get. That is, the wider the fan base, the more books he can sell, even if some are only reading the free versions. In addition, he asks that if you read the book and like it, you can buy a copy through his website that will go to a library or school requesting it. Kinda neat.