And regardless of what ebook reader yo choose you'll be ahead of the game. I dearly love the ability to download new books while waiting the the doctors office, and searching for an author from the Kindle.
And what 'nickel and dime' stuff are you talking about? While they do charge 10 cents per document to send, you can get around that by using your google email.....for free......Look it up, I believe its on the amazon Kindle page.
As for other books, you will find a wealth of older authors for free, available also to be downloaded directly to your kindle......
Look at
this site and you can download their guide
also, you can go to
www.feedbooks.com and download their guide
And...
www.mnybks.com and download from you kindle by entering the code of each book......again, for free...
You can go online and search these sites to see what I"m talking about......enjoy!