MobileRead Forums - View Single Post - The quest for the Korean e-book

HelenaJole · 08-25-2010, 07:58 PM

I was excited to see that the Kindle 3 supports Korean text (as well as Russian, Japanese, and Chinese). I've been thinking of getting a Kindle and I would love to be able to read Korean books on it as well.

Amazon does not currently have any Kindle books in Korean, so I went poking around on some Korean sites to see what I could find. yes24, Kyobo and Nuut all have ebooks available.

I haven't tried anything with Nuut yet, but I was able to register on both Yes24 and Kyobo.

I almost got through buying a book on Yes24, but their credit-card verification thingy choked on my card number. I tried calling but wasn't able to get through to a real person. (I didn't spend a lot of time on this--I may try again later. I can't really understand the recorded menu at all, but I could just push buttons randomly and see what happens. (Heh.) Their books are in ePub.

I had a bit more success at Kyobo and was able to actually buy a book. Theirs are in ePub and also PDF, which seemed promising. When I went to download the book, it asked to install a program called eBookCase. I tried installing it but it doesn't seem to have worked properly. The installer and everything in the program is in hangul and it's all just showing up as question marks in gibberish. (I can see hangul fine in internet browsers and things like MS Word and Photoshop, but not something like this, apparently.) After eBookCase sort-of-installed it opened up another program called ezPDF Reader. Then a little window popped up that said, "Cannot open: Damaged document."

I did try uninstalling and re-installing eBookCase and got the same result.

I called Kyobo and got through to a real person, and they said that yes, I do have to use this eBookCase with their ebooks. I don't really know much computer-related vocabulary so I couldn't really explain what was going on. I wrote them an email (in English) but haven't heard anything back... they may or may not be able to help me out that way.

Now, since I don't actually have an e-reader yet I don't really know how these things work, but is it the case that most places that sell e-books also have their own software that you have to install to access the files? I don't suppose there's anyone here who's bought from any of these places and was able to get the software to work?

Even if I can get a book downloaded, I have no idea if I would be able to read it on a Kindle. PDF should work, right? Or is that not really a good format for reading text?

I'm willing to consider other devices if something else seems like it would work better. At this point I'm just trying to get the books downloaded.

08-25-2010, 07:58 PM	#1
HelenaJole Connoisseur Posts: 88 Karma: 580 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kindle 3	The quest for the Korean e-book I was excited to see that the Kindle 3 supports Korean text (as well as Russian, Japanese, and Chinese). I've been thinking of getting a Kindle and I would love to be able to read Korean books on it as well. Amazon does not currently have any Kindle books in Korean, so I went poking around on some Korean sites to see what I could find. yes24, Kyobo and Nuut all have ebooks available. I haven't tried anything with Nuut yet, but I was able to register on both Yes24 and Kyobo. I almost got through buying a book on Yes24, but their credit-card verification thingy choked on my card number. I tried calling but wasn't able to get through to a real person. (I didn't spend a lot of time on this--I may try again later. I can't really understand the recorded menu at all, but I could just push buttons randomly and see what happens. (Heh.) Their books are in ePub. I had a bit more success at Kyobo and was able to actually buy a book. Theirs are in ePub and also PDF, which seemed promising. When I went to download the book, it asked to install a program called eBookCase. I tried installing it but it doesn't seem to have worked properly. The installer and everything in the program is in hangul and it's all just showing up as question marks in gibberish. (I can see hangul fine in internet browsers and things like MS Word and Photoshop, but not something like this, apparently.) After eBookCase sort-of-installed it opened up another program called ezPDF Reader. Then a little window popped up that said, "Cannot open: Damaged document." I did try uninstalling and re-installing eBookCase and got the same result. I called Kyobo and got through to a real person, and they said that yes, I do have to use this eBookCase with their ebooks. I don't really know much computer-related vocabulary so I couldn't really explain what was going on. I wrote them an email (in English) but haven't heard anything back... they may or may not be able to help me out that way. Now, since I don't actually have an e-reader yet I don't really know how these things work, but is it the case that most places that sell e-books also have their own software that you have to install to access the files? I don't suppose there's anyone here who's bought from any of these places and was able to get the software to work? Even if I can get a book downloaded, I have no idea if I would be able to read it on a Kindle. PDF should work, right? Or is that not really a good format for reading text? I'm willing to consider other devices if something else seems like it would work better. At this point I'm just trying to get the books downloaded.