Classic eReader content on the Nook

[geertm]

Originally Posted by bethlo

i'm probably going to myself look dumb here, but i just got my nook last week, so i'm still learning!

i bought two "secure ereader" books from fictionwise, thinking that if it's a barnes and noble company, of course they are going to work on my nook. but...so far i've been unable to get the books on the nook though. do i just drag them onto the nook icon on my desktop (that one just occured to me, but i'm at work, so won't be able to do that until i get home tonight). i did download the ereader software, it opens the books on the desktop ok. i was trying to drag them into ADE, (it was late at night and i wasn't firing on all cylinders obviously! i realize now that isn't going to work since they are a pdb). do i need to download calibre too?

many thanks in advance. this board has been a wonderful resource!
beth

Just drag and drop the ereader books to the My Documents folder of the Nook. Than go to My Documents on your Nook and choose "check for new content".

[bethlo]

thank you so much geertm- i appreciate your help!!

feeling a little like a dork now, but i'll get the hang of it...just glad i didn't just blow ten bucks for nothing!

[Chisaiyama]

Perhaps my experience isn't atypical but I have had lots of problems sideloading any books onto my nook. Physically getting them onto the micro sd card is no problem but getting the nook to see them is.

As for the older ereader.com/fictionwise.com pdb books what I found with my nook is this: the DRMd pdbs work just fine but my nook will positively NOT read the non-secure pdbs. I solve this by using Calibre to convert them to epub.

When I first got my nook I had over 800 books already about evenly split between DRM and non-secure pdb. I sideloaded all of them into the my documents folder I created on my micro sd card, ejected the nook and went to the my documents directory and it said CHECKING FOR NEW CONTENT. About an hour later it was still checking. Nothing I could do would make it see those books. My B&N books in the B&N library showed up just fine but not the sideloaded stuff.

I tried the 800 number, I spent about an hour with the local B&N nook guru at the store and still nothing. Finally after much trial and error I discovered that if I created subdirectories under the my documents and put no more than 275 books in each directory and if I transferred no more than 100 books at a time and if I ejected the nook between each transfer and let it check for new content it would work.

What a hassel! I have stuck by it and now have more than 1400 books on my nook but still have many problems whenever I sideload anything. Quite often I have to unregister the nook from my B&N account and then use the Reset to Factory Settings selection from the Device menu, then re-register it to get it to properly read the newly added books.

Surely there has got to be an easier system. Has anyone else had any of these problems and if so have you found an easier method to overcome them?

[geertm]

Originally Posted by Chisaiyama

Perhaps my experience isn't atypical but I have had lots of problems sideloading any books onto my nook. Physically getting them onto the micro sd card is no problem but getting the nook to see them is.

As for the older ereader.com/fictionwise.com pdb books what I found with my nook is this: the DRMd pdbs work just fine but my nook will positively NOT read the non-secure pdbs. I solve this by using Calibre to convert them to epub.

When I first got my nook I had over 800 books already about evenly split between DRM and non-secure pdb. I sideloaded all of them into the my documents folder I created on my micro sd card, ejected the nook and went to the my documents directory and it said CHECKING FOR NEW CONTENT. About an hour later it was still checking. Nothing I could do would make it see those books. My B&N books in the B&N library showed up just fine but not the sideloaded stuff.

I tried the 800 number, I spent about an hour with the local B&N nook guru at the store and still nothing. Finally after much trial and error I discovered that if I created subdirectories under the my documents and put no more than 275 books in each directory and if I transferred no more than 100 books at a time and if I ejected the nook between each transfer and let it check for new content it would work.

What a hassel! I have stuck by it and now have more than 1400 books on my nook but still have many problems whenever I sideload anything. Quite often I have to unregister the nook from my B&N account and then use the Reset to Factory Settings selection from the Device menu, then re-register it to get it to properly read the newly added books.

Surely there has got to be an easier system. Has anyone else had any of these problems and if so have you found an easier method to overcome them?

If I remember correctly from the B&N boards the current firmware seems to have a limit of some 1300 to 1400 books. As you have already more than 1400 books on your Nook, that is probably the cause of your problems.
Try to limit the number of books to no more than 1000. Than you should have no problems with sideloading.
You could also wait for the 1.5 update at the end of this month. Perhaps they have done something about this limit.

The problem with non-secure PDB files is a known problem of the Nook. Using Calibre to convert those files to ePub is indeed the recommended solution.

[Chisaiyama]

As I recall the original propaganda..er...advertising for the nook said that its internal memory had capacity for something like 1500 books and that you could load up to 32gb card in the auxillary memory slot. That being the case a limit of 1400 books seems a bit outre' but thanks for the info. I am indeed waiting with baited breath for the 1.5 update especially to see if they have done something about the my documents browser to hopefully add a search function instead of having to click click click through all of those books.

[GreenMonkey]

Do Fictionwise's secure e-reader books convert well in Calibre? PDB is the second-to-last recommended format for conversion in the Calibre list.

I've been interested in picking up a few books from there on sale, but lately there's nothing but Secure Ereader format available, mostly.

I'm not sure I'll stay on a Nook forever, so I'd prefer epub...

[Chisaiyama]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Do Fictionwise's secure e-reader books convert well in Calibre? PDB is the second-to-last recommended format for conversion in the Calibre list.

I've been interested in picking up a few books from there on sale, but lately there's nothing but Secure Ereader format available, mostly.

I'm not sure I'll stay on a Nook forever, so I'd prefer epub...

No, secure (DRMed) books of any format cannot be converted by calibre but the nonsecure pdbs do convert quite well. Also several months ago, actually close to a year now, Fictionwise lost their contract with one of their main suplliers and lost many of their mainstream authors so the available variety has become somewhat less since then.

My personal thoughts are that B&N (the parent company) are planning on phasing out ereader.com & fictionwise.com, as a result you can often get books cheaper at B&N then at either of those sites. And of course now B&N only supplies the books in epub format.

[thrawn_aj]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

I've been interested in picking up a few books from there on sale, but lately there's nothing but Secure Ereader format available, mostly.

I'm not sure I'll stay on a Nook forever, so I'd prefer epub...

Turns out that even B&N doesn't feel like supporting PDB anymore. If you check out the B&N forum, there's a few angry customers complaining about the fact that the nookColor does not support PDB.

I personally detest DRM'd PDBs. I've never seen one that has the correct metadata. It's a tedious process to the strip the DRM and there's no way to correct the metadata without doing so (unlike ePUB, where you can edit the metadata without decrypting the book).

[wallcraft]

Originally Posted by langshipley

How do you convert the DRMed Fictionwise books or did you get only multiformat books from Fictionwise?

I tried to convert my books using Calibre and it told me the books had DRM on it.

See Apprentice Alf's Blog for a good summary of DRM issues. The tools_v2.1 bundle includes a plug-in for Calibre (your best bet since you need Calibre to format shift anyway) and stand-alone eReader DRM utilities.

[Chisaiyama]

Originally Posted by thrawn_aj

Turns out that even B&N doesn't feel like supporting PDB anymore. If you check out the B&N forum, there's a few angry customers complaining about the fact that the nookColor does not support PDB.

I personally detest DRM'd PDBs. I've never seen one that has the correct metadata. It's a tedious process to the strip the DRM and there's no way to correct the metadata without doing so (unlike ePUB, where you can edit the metadata without decrypting the book).

Indeed, my first ebooks were pdb on a Palm then on various WM Smartphones/PDAs but I have really fallen in love with the EPUB format which appears to winning the format wars.

[BVLarson]

Hmm, sounds like it's time to get out Calibre and start fooling around with formats...
-BVL