Google ebooks question

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by AceTracer

Yeah, you're missing the fact that Google Books has scanned versions of all its books. I much prefer reading the actual book as it was intended, instead of hampered flowing text versions (which is why I try to get PDF versions whenever I can).

I knew about the scanned books. As I recall they are mostly old out of print books from the beginning of time (almost ). I even downloaded some science book from the 1800's out of curiosity. I also recall that a number of the scans (no idea of the amount) were very poor scans with wonky pages that weren't set properly on the scanning bed.

Are you saying that "every" book they sell has a scanned text version?

[abookreader]

Okay - I went and tried one on my K3.
Just okay, not great. Not easily readable and the page turns were fairly slow for me. Definitely not up to the ease of reading a downloaded eBook on the same machine.

I think that I might eventually find a book or two of out of print not available anywhere else that I might want to buy, assuming Google manages to work out the rights to sell those. But right now I don't see a reason that I'd want to switch away from my 2 or 3 regular stores for current literature, which is 99.9% of my purchases.

I'm not a huge fan of scanned PDF books to begin with, especially for the types of books I like to read. I'm almost always a mass market fiction reader.

[MsAstoria]

From the news press release, Google states that books are read online with your internet connetion. Sounds like you can't download them to your reading device? Frankly for older books like Moby Dick, etc. I prefer to download from Feedbooks.com and they are available in mobi for Kindle, and more formats.
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Ok, retraction here: just downloaded the ipad app, then added free ebook from Google store. No problem, looks good, easy to read and I can turn off wi-fi and it's apparently downloaded for offline viewing. Won't buy books from Google as they're not any cheaper than Amazon.

[mldavis2]

I bought an eBook reader to get away from sitting bolt upright in a chair at a computer screen or having to hold a warm, heavy computer on my lap. If I can't read it on my Kindle, away from WiFi, without burning battery power to stay online, I'm certainly not interested.

[abookreader]

From a thread up in the News forum, apparently most of them can be downloaded and some of them are restricted by the Publisher, but I'm clueless as to WHY they would be restricted. For instance - The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

http://books.google.com/ebooks?id=Wr...attoo&as_brr=5

If you look up by the Buy button you see a message

$5.20 $14.95
No download files included.

I find it odd that a book that is can be downloaded at every other bookstore isn't at Google.

I've been looking thru my "Hoping for eBook" someday wishlists and trying to find some old out of print books I'd like. I haven't hit one yet, but maybe someday.

[AceTracer]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

Are you saying that "every" book they sell has a scanned text version?

Yes. At least every book I've tried so far.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by AceTracer

Yes. At least every book I've tried so far.

Even though I'm not interested in PDF books, I am giving it a look. Right now, I'm looking at "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest". I don't see any format choices. How are you finding the formats. BTW, I'm testing this on my laptop, not my Kindle, if that makes a difference.

Edit: Typed in the wrong book title.

[abookreader]

I'm curious as to why you find re-flowed text hampered Ace? Do you primarily read books with tables and graphs maybe?

My experience with book scans has been quite different than yours, mostly OCR errors that detract from the experience.

[AceTracer]

Originally Posted by abookreader

Do you primarily read books with tables and graphs maybe?

Yes. I'm a web developer and I also travel a lot. Reference books and guidebooks are a PDF-only proposition for me.

But even more than that, even if the book has no graphical elements, digital text doesn't feel like a real book. The typesetting isn't there. I'm a very visual, design oriented person. Someone spent a lot of time typesetting that book, and it's a shame that this is lost in flowing text versions.

[AceTracer]

Originally Posted by daffy4u

I don't see any format choices. How are you finding the formats.

On the left, you'll see an "Aa" icon.

Click on it, then change "Flowing text" to "Scanned version".

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by AceTracer

On the left, you'll see an "Aa" icon.

Click on it, then change "Flowing text" to "Scanned version".

Now, I see it (with the sample). Thanks! I though the "Aa" was just for text size so I didn't click on it.

[AceTracer]

Example.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by AceTracer

Yeah, you're missing the fact that Google Books has scanned versions of all its books. I much prefer reading the actual book as it was intended, instead of hampered flowing text versions (which is why I try to get PDF versions whenever I can).

They offer ePub or PDF downloads for all of the titles I've looked at so far. Seems like the best of both worlds.

I can't tell yet if the epub source is independently generated by them in all cases, or if they get this from publishers or a clearing house (at least for books available for purchase). I purchased a book and am comparing samples of others to try to figure that out. Haven't seen any scanning typos or formatting glitches, but it does look different than samples from, say, B&N (for example headings are left justified instead of centered).

And did I mention the web viewer works pretty well on K3?

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by MsAstoria

From the news press release, Google states that books are read online with your internet connetion. Sounds like you can't download them to your reading device? Frankly for older books like Moby Dick, etc. I prefer to download from Feedbooks.com and they are available in mobi for Kindle, and more formats.
------------
Ok, retraction here: just downloaded the ipad app, then added free ebook from Google store. No problem, looks good, easy to read and I can turn off wi-fi and it's apparently downloaded for offline viewing. Won't buy books from Google as they're not any cheaper than Amazon.

Not only that, you can download ePub or PDF, and read on any ereader or app that supports Adobe DRM (or the non DRM ePub/PDF offerings of course)

[AceTracer]

Originally Posted by tomsem

And did I mention the web viewer works pretty well on K3?

I can't login

It keeps telling me "Your Kindle is unable to load the requested page"