Update: May 2012 from December
2011 (lots of tech changes here):
Update Note 5-26-2012: A simple way to get ebooks from your library is to go to the library site on PC or MAC and check them out. Click for the Lancaster County Website. You then be able to check out Kindle versions online to be sent to your Kindle if available.
Before we read that book we need to get it.
To get a book, we first need to FIND it.
It should be possible to go
to one site for any book, find it, and read it.
That is not possible yet, though
there is progress since this piece was originally written last fall. The Kindle Fire offered then as now a
limited Amazon subset of all the books and “apps” available on the basic eBook marketplace,
itself now transformed into Google Play.
So
this is a revision and update of my December article on how to find and get books
on Kindle. This is a 7” diagonal device,
and there are larger devices, especially the iPad with its larger screen. Importantly for some may be a possible 10”
Fire. Much here also applies to reading
eBooks on the PC or Mac.
Hardware and
software have both changed. Note that
the original Fire was dedicated to obtaining books and tools for getting them from
Amazon’s online store. One new
look-alike and workalike device, introduced on April 20, the Samsung Tab 2 7
works like the Fire except that it has a state-of-art foundation and much easier
access to books and apps through the new much broader Google Play store, and
elsewhere, at a cost of $250. (Many) more
such devices will be coming, such as from
Apple, Google, Asus, Acer, and Lenovo, along with cheaper devices down
to $100.
The Samsung lookalike is also a fully capable computer
with GPS, Infrared, expandable memory, internal mic, camera, phoning, speech
recognition, and Google Chrome and its many cloud sharing features. It looks exactly like the Fire. You might call it an unfettered Kindle Fire. It
can use a remote keyboard. It runs some formerly "only iPad" apps.
The effect is that the new device also makes getting
eBooks easier, though most books can still be obtained with more effort with
the Kindle Fire. At the same time, the Kindle
has simplified sending certain documents to Kindle, such as "pdfs".
All this could change. The Kindle Fire could (and should) be upgraded
with a download. Kindle Fire sales are
falling as Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7” sales rise.
Now, to
find WHAT you want to read, (for heavy readers) join goodreads) In your searches, know that many books are
free from whatever your source may be.
(In the
following, it will be helpful to know what an “app” is. The Kindle Fire is a device which has the
Kindle reader app in it, along with other apps or applications, such as Email
or Weather or News. These are known
also as “.apk” files which may be installed from Amazon, and more and more
online “stores”, along with eBooks.
Some of them greatly aid in getting books.)
Whereas
the Kindle Fire can load selected apps
easily, the Samsung can load them all easily.
However, the Kindle Fire can be loaded with nearly all, with extra
effort and computer savvy, from unofficial app stores which are proliferating.
The Kindle Way to Find Kindle
Books
If the book is an Amazon book, the process is
simple. Click on Books. Search for the book.
Click on the cover to read it.
Of course, you need an Amazon account to get it, even if
free.
Many
readers will need to do no more, though Amazon offers much more:
We can search by genre. We can buy a
dead-tree copy of the book. We can borrow it. We
can read an Amazon library book. On the Amazon book website there
are reader comments about books.
But
suppose Amazon does not have the book we are seeking. The Kindle software does use a proprietary format
of its own and also excludes some other major formats and libraries. So then we need to find that book elsewhere.
The Kindle Fire makes this possible by offering a browser which accesses more
than just Kindle accessible books and media.
We can,
for example, do a simple Google search. Generally, though,
there are better places to look. For
that we go to our browser directly:
The Browser Way to Find Books
The old Google way:
The first
place to look is Google Books. Not Google, not Google
eBooks, but just plain Google Books. Click here: http://books.google.com/googlebooks/mobile/
Then you will need to sign up (register). Here Google has
been creating a massive listing and electronically readable source of: the
Library of Congress, the British libraries and the German equivalents (with
huge numbers of English books in the last).
A search
of Google books will not only find books. If it has a book listed,
it will show your where and how to get it or read it.
Importantly, it will let you read it on screen or get
it elsewhere.
That
comes close to the being the simplest way to find and read an eBook.
Reading
the book from Google Books’ webpage is easy The book can be read on
either Kindle Fire or ANY other computer, either streamed from the cloud or
downloaded to read away from the cloud and/or transferred to Kindle Fire.
To read on the Fire from Google books, you need only to access
the mobile webpage above. Create a Fire bookmark for it.
The new Google Way
.
Other Website Access to the
World's Books
It so
easy to publish a book that all books are not available from the major
libraries.
There is,
for example, Lulu books, where you can self-publish your book.
Indeed, major publishers also use Lulu, which prints on demand, one
copy at a time You can go to the Lulu website and download it from
there, often free.
Open Library
There are
other sites than Google books.
A major one is openlibrary.org (20,000,000
books). This source works like Google Play.
Here we may also borrow a book. We may even find
it in a nearby library. We may read it online, if available.
It is possible to read the book online on the Kindle Fire, but
easier on a larger computer. It is helpful to make another
bookmark for openlibrary.
Fortunately,
openlibrary will send books direct to
Kindles from its website on PC or KIndle Fire itself. (Another major archive is
archive.org, the mother "ship" of openlibrary.)
Here is
Amazon's guide to these:
Photocopied eBooks
That brings to mind
the fact that all books are not in text
electronically readable format. Google Books and openlibrary also
have many photocopies of books readable online and by Kindle if available that
way. You may even buy from them a paper photocopy of an out-of-print
book
When faced with a choice of paper or eBook, I
find that if I know what I want, I prefer to be able to read it by eBook reader
or online. If not, I prefer to access the paper copy.
For example, I read the daily paper online. I
read the Sunday paper in print, where I can be exposed to much that is
otherwise unknown to me.
The Fire
can also look for areas of interest and aggregate these into magazine or
newspaper-like format online, using apps such as .gReader Pro, available for
Fire from Amazon, and newly FlipBoard.
Libraries and Formats
Most local libraries offer eBooks online. Newly they also offer huge numbers of
public domain books which do not expire.
Much has recently been simplified in the process of getting them. . For a simple way to get books from your
library, just install the Overdrive "app" from Amazon or the Overdrive
website Alternatively, we can also go
to our Library’s
webpage and look for digital or eBooks and Overdrive there.
Not only
does Amazon have its own library. There is Nook’s library for the
Nook reader, and many other such libraries such as Sony’s
Fortunately,
the Fire can operate AS the Nook, for example, and access the Nook library.
It can operate as other readers and access other
libraries. Popular libraries are manybooks and
feedreader and gutenberg. A app from Amazon store such
as Aldiko turns the Kindle Fire into the Aldiko reader to access such
libraries The Kindle can turn into
other readers, such as Stanza and Bluefire and Cool Reader just by installing
apps for them.
Each of
these “apps” usually includes selected libraries and selected digital formats.
These
libraries are not always readable on another eBook reader or app.
Amazon has its own format, AZW. The
books in each of these libraries may need conversion, treated again below.
I get
eBooks from openlibrary and send them to the Kindle for use with Aldiko, using
a format not supported by Kindle but readable on the Fire with Aldiko.
Here are
some of the main: formats for the newer readers
AZW, CBZ,
CBR, CBC, CHM, DJVU, EPUB, FB2, HTML, HTMLZ, LIT, LRF, MOBI, ODT, PDF, PRC,
PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ
Kindle
now handles: TXT, MOBI, AXW, PDF, HTML. PDF files may be emailed to your
unique Kindle email address (yourname@kindle,com) with the word Convert in the
subject line. This is important.
Nook
handles: TXT, PDF, EPUB Sony: BBB, TXT, PDF, RTF
What a
mess. The AZW and The EPUBS are the most popular
eBook formats. The PDFs are widely used public documents.
Calibre
To date,
it has required a conversion tool called Calibre to access and convert books to
read in a particular source’s format. http://calibre-ebook.com/.
The
trend, though has been for each library to access more and more formats, as
described below. For example, you can send a converted book easily
from openlibrary.
Therefore,
with the Fire, the easiest way up to recently has been simply to avoid
conversion and simply to install the so-called “app” which makes the Fire work
as a Nook or some other reader.
I use:
MOBI: FBReader, iReader
EPUB: FBReader, Mantano
PDF: Kindle, Mantano, Adobe Reader
FBReader is an old reader, recently greatly improved; some PDFs may not read well in any such app.
Newly,
however, Calibre has an easy-to-use app itself for iPad and for other readers except
Kindle Fire at this date. This brings
easy access to a huge library of books and journals. Calibre Library app works on Samsung, though.
"APP" Readers
So far, I
might note that some other Kindles than the Fire may be able to read ePUB books
in other ways. gReader PRO above from Amazon or Google stores current news from Google’s
Reader app which aggregates your choice of news. Both apps run on the Fire and are available
from Amazon.
Where
an app like like Google Books above, is not available from the Amazon store,
many apps may be nonetheless installed to the Fire There is a procedure for that, too,
described below.
Again,
newly, installing such an app is easy to install on an reader such as the
Samsung, using the largest app store, Google Play.
Now if
all this seems complicated, you do not need to do it all at once.
The Kindle store alone will work until you cannot find the
book you want. Just know that there are
other ways to get it.
Downloading
(Much of the following is simplified in the Samsung
Tab 2. Whereas many apps and books are
not easily obtained from Amazon’s somewhat limited library, the Samsung accesses
the exhaustive Google library simply.)
This Amazon should change.
Your book may appear in a reader as archived. If so, you have it, but need to download it
to read it offline and away from wifi.
The Fire
does that quite automatically for Kindle books from their store.
We can download books when connected simply by touching the
book cover picture and selecting it for download. The
book cover has a little arrow which identifies it as not downloaded yet
.
This
process works for Nook, and most others readers, too.
Downloading from Elsewhere
Downloading
will get you a book directly from many other sources, such as Google
Books, openlibrary, Lulu, and Overdrive. Once that has happened,
you may need either to access it on the Fire or on PC and then transfer it to
Kindle..
Downloading
is usually an option shown by source websites right on their webpage.
From PC the books need to be either transferred or
converted, or both. In Windows 7 the books go to the download
directory or to a shared directory.
As mentioned,
from PC books can be converted with Calibre http://calibre-ebook.com/ and
easily sent to Kindles. You may need
to plug in the Fire to PC via usb cable to do so. For the Fire, you can also
simply Email PDF files as an attachment and send them to your own primary
kindle-specific email address listed by Amazon in Kindle Manager
(In the Subject box type Convert)
If
eMailing, though, you then need to save them in Fire’s eMail and go to an app you
got downloaded from Amazon Store called Documents to Go, where you can click on
them to bring up the appropriate reader such as Kindle or Aldiko or Mantano above.
Also,
from PC or Mac it is possible to send eBooks and apps into the cloud where
the Fire may access them, using an app called Dropbox, which can be downloaded
to run on PC and Mac. Dropbox is available for Fire from the Amazon store.
Then, if
we save a file on Dropbox on PC it automatically appears on the Fire. If you click on the downloaded file in
Dropbox on the Fire, it will then be accessed as above by the available
readers, such as Kindle, of course, but also Nook, and others. Now Google offers an alternative to DropBox
call Drive. I use both.
(Now,
there are those who warn about viruses, worse those wanting to sell you
antivirus software. Consumer Reports says the exposure
is unlikely for cell phones---the Fire has the same system as a cell phone. ) OK,
you can obtain the Lookout or AVS antivirus software apps if paranoid.
Now, with all this, you access the libraries
of the world from anywhere, and without going anywhere.
In
a small book-sized device you have the world of media of all kinds as opposed
to needing a big computer, and also record player, cd player, tv recorder and
player, movie theatre. All in the palm of your hand. With the Samsung, and others to come you will
have most of the capabilities of your PC or Mac, even a wireless keyboard.
