A few questions

[tecweston]

I have a Kobo wifi, and I'm either going to get a Kobo touch or Nook touch. I went to Barnes and Noble to see the Nook but the lady I talked to didn't seem like she knew all the answers to my questions.

1. Can you get library books on a Nook? Most of the books I read are library books, so this is important. It's the only reason I'm not getting a Kindle.

2. Are there free public domain books for Nook? I downloaded the Nook iPhone app but I cannot find any free books. I read a lot of classics and these are all free on the Kobo.

3. Can you get free samples of books to read, and read them on the Nook? On the Kobo you can only get free samples in the iPhone app, you cannot read them on the Kobo, and they only include the title page and copyright page. I want it like the Kindle, where you get the first chapter or two.

The lady at B&N said there are substantial previews, but I can't find any in the iPhone app.

4. The formatting on the Kobo is horrible. They dont look like printed pages, they look like Word documents; with double spacing, no paragraph indents, and no justified text. The book I saw on the Nook at B&N had proper text formatting, but are they all like this?

Thank you.

[Doug Pardee]

1. Yes. Note: Kindle will be getting this feature later this year, and it should be a lot easier (no Adobe Digital Editions).
2. Yes. All e-readers can read public-domain e-books.
3. Yes.
4. The formatting is specified by the e-book, not by the e-reader.

[cfrock]

Let me add to the formatting answer...

The STR does let you change margins and line spacing.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by tecweston

I have a Kobo wifi, and I'm either going to get a Kobo touch or Nook touch. I went to Barnes and Noble to see the Nook but the lady I talked to didn't seem like she knew all the answers to my questions. 1.
Can you get library books on a Nook? Most of the books I read are library books, so this is important. It's the only reason I'm not getting a Kindle.

The native format for the nook is epub, which is the format generally available for library books, so yes. However, I've seen a lot of comments about how it can be a little troublesome to get ADE working on your PC (books have to go through that to get them in a condition the nook can deal with), so read up on Adobe Digital Editions.

Originally Posted by tecweston

2. Are there free public domain books for Nook? I downloaded the Nook iPhone app but I cannot find any free books. I read a lot of classics and these are all free on the Kobo.

It can read any uncrypted epub (and most encrypted ones, if you follow instructions), and there are many, many, many free books in epub format. Take a look at Project Gutenberg for the biggest respository. Many publishers have various freebies (often, but not always, public domain) as well. If you like science fiction and/or fantasy, take a look at Baen's Free Library and browse the list of CD images available at The Fifth Imperium (this is perfectly legal - Baen distributes a lot of first edition hardcovers with a CD containing unencrypted copies of a bunch of similiar books, and there is permission to make and distribute copies printed on the CD - so long as you do not charge money for them). I believe there's a section of this very web site that lists good sites for free books, too.

Originally Posted by tecweston

3. Can you get free samples of books to read, and read them on the Nook? On the Kobo you can only get free samples in the iPhone app, you cannot read them on the Kobo, and they only include the title page and copyright page. I want it like the Kindle, where you get the first chapter or two.

That's really up to the publisher, and most allow it. B&N's web site for nook books has samples for many titles (under the Buy Now button, there will be a text link for "Get Free Sample"). If you're browsing on the device, there will be a button under the price button you use to buy the book. (Note that this downloads the sample to the device, and while it's easy to get it off the home screen, the only way to remove it - even after you buy the book - is through your account page on their web site. It's a small irritation, but it is annoying.)

The lady at B&N said there are substantial previews, but I can't find any in the iPhone app. [/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by tecweston

4. The formatting on the Kobo is horrible. They dont look like printed pages, they look like Word documents; with double spacing, no paragraph indents, and no justified text. The book I saw on the Nook at B&N had proper text formatting, but are they all like this?

That is, to some degree, up to the publisher, but in my experience (with a nook color and an original nook), pretty much all books look the same formatting wise. (PDFs are another matter, they're very mixed, and more often than not look like crap because the native PDF reader is crap). epub is basically a variant of HTML, so the visual appearance is mostly up to the software you're reading on, and nook's seems to be pretty good. I'm quite happy with it, anyway.

[Musicman]

On the nook you can download samples,but by far even better than samples is the ability to ready almost any book for an hour IN STORE. You can go back the next day and you can pick up where you left off.

Naturally, a B&N Store has to be close enough to make it worthwhile...

[tecweston]

Thanks, guys. I have a few follow-up questions.

Re: the free previews. Can you download these on the Nook iPhone app? If so, how? Or are these only available to download on the Nook itself? If so, how easy is it to search for books on the device? On my Kobo it's a pain in the butt to shop on the device, so I do all my browsing and purchasing within the iPhone app and then sync the devices.

Re: the free public domain books. On Kindle/Kobo Project Gutenberg books are easy to find and download within the store. On Nook there don't appear to be any. Do you have to side-load all public domain books or is there some special area of the Nook store that these are in?

[purple_fishy]

If you search on bn.com (or from your Nook) and put $0.00 in the search, you will be able to find all the free classics. I do want to warn you though, I have ended up deleting alot of the classics that I got from B&N because they had lots of weird typos. The ones that I side-loaded from Project Gutenberg are much better and it's not that hard to do. If you use Calibre, you can even download covers that you like if the Project Gutenberg ones are not to your liking.

[HarryT]

Forgive me pointing out the obvious, but you can download thousands of nicely formatted public domain books right here at MR.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Thanks, guys. I have a few follow-up questions.

Re: the free previews. Can you download these on the Nook iPhone app? If so, how? Or are these only available to download on the Nook itself? If so, how easy is it to search for books on the device? On my Kobo it's a pain in the butt to shop on the device, so I do all my browsing and purchasing within the iPhone app and then sync the devices.

Re: the free public domain books. On Kindle/Kobo Project Gutenberg books are easy to find and download within the store. On Nook there don't appear to be any. Do you have to side-load all public domain books or is there some special area of the Nook store that these are in?

1. Yes you can download the free samples onto your iPhone. I have the Android nook app, but I don't think it should be that much different than the iPhone app. When you are shopping underneath the price there should be button for "Sample" just touch that.


Searching for books is pretty easy and straightforward, you can search by genre, titlte, author, and other catagories or just use the search bar at the top of the screen.

shopping on the nook app and on the nook is really easy. It's wonderful on the nookcolor, one of if not the best instore shopping app on any ereader. The nook STR uses the same UI you should really enjoy it.

on the nook when shopping and you are looking for alot of free books etc, type in 0.00 or simply type in "Free" in the search function and that should bring up free books.

for Project Gutenberg again just type in Project Gutenberg in the search section.


I hope this helps

[taustin]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Thanks, guys. I have a few follow-up questions.

Re: the free previews. Can you download these on the Nook iPhone app? If so, how? Or are these only available to download on the Nook itself? If so, how easy is it to search for books on the device? On my Kobo it's a pain in the butt to shop on the device, so I do all my browsing and purchasing within the iPhone app and then sync the devices.

If I'm not mistaken, anything you "buy" (including the free samples) from B&N is available to download through your account on their web site. I'm not familiar with the iPhone or how its nook app works, but I suspect there's a way to download it through the browser in the iPhone and open it directly. I'm certain you can download it through your computer and load it on to the iPhone from there.

Originally Posted by tecweston

Re: the free public domain books. On Kindle/Kobo Project Gutenberg books are easy to find and download within the store. On Nook there don't appear to be any. Do you have to side-load all public domain books or is there some special area of the Nook store that these are in?

I recently tried an experiment with my nook color. Went to Project Gutenberg in the web browser, and downloaded Twenty Years After. It didn't show up under "Books" in the Library, but it did show up under My Files-->My Files-->My Downloads, and it opens up fine from there, and seems to work OK (the device even remembers that's the last book I was reading). I have no idea if this will work on the Touch, though.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by tecweston

Re: the free previews. Can you download these on the Nook iPhone app? If so, how? Or are these only available to download on the Nook itself? If so, how easy is it to search for books on the device? On my Kobo it's a pain in the butt to shop on the device, so I do all my browsing and purchasing within the iPhone app and then sync the devices.

Yes, you can download the samples using the iPhone app. However, at the moment, there seem to be syncing issues between mobile apps and the Nook ereaders. There is a separate thread on that discussion. Hopefully, B&N will fix it in an update soon. I think that you will be disappointed shopping using the Nook iPhone app because it is not as nice as the Kobo iPhone app "Discover" and "Browse" organization. I do not really like shopping on the Nook iPhone app at all unless I know specifically what I want. On the other hand, accessing the Shop directly from the Nook is a much better experience and organized more similar to the Kobo iPhone app shopping. I do like the on-device shop very much. In other words, I think it would be an improvement to your current process. You would probably be happy shopping directly on the Nook rather than having to purchase on your iPhone and then sync back to the device (assuming they fix the syncing process). Hope that helps!

[tecweston]

Thank you. I typed in $0.00 and was able to find the free stuff. Typing in "$0.00 Sherlock Holmes," for example, gave me a list of all the public domain Arthur Conan Doyle stuff I could download.

I also found the free previews. I don't know why I had such a hard time finding it before, but I went to "Robopocalypse" and was able to download a free preview of it onto the Nook iPhone app.

Awesome. Now that I know the Nook can do what I need it to, I can't wait to get it. My fiancée has promised she'll get it for me for a wedding present on August, so I just have to use my Kobo until then.