ebook searches

[john.hunt100]

Hi everyone

first time poster here

I have order my Cybook Gen3 and have started to look at what is out there in the ebook world whilst I am waiting for it to be delivered. However what I would like is some sort of way of checking if a book is available in ebook form before I start trying to find it. For instance I saw a book by Mark Steel (a British comedian) today and nearly bought it when I realised I should check if it is available in ebook form but seem to have to trawl through the few websites I have found so far to see if it exists. Obviously this is fairly tedious. There must be a better way. Even putting 'Mark Steel ebook' in a search engine like google finds nothing. Is there a better question I could ask? Would I do better by ISBN?

There is a website called http://www.dvdpricecheck.co.uk/ which trawls through loads of international DVD sellers to find DVD titles by price and region, is there a similar website for ebooks? Or is this the Holy Grail of the ebook world? I don't have any internet programming skills to put anything in place myself I am afraid

Not sure where I should have posted this so if it needs to be moved elsewhere then apologies

cheers
John

[Dave Berk]

Right now there is no such search engine, although work is under way - all credit to Gianfranco.

Meantime, You should search Fictionwise and BoB and the Kindle store for the book you're looking for. If it's not there, it probably don't exist as an ebook.

Edit: Welcome to Mobileread. Here you will find people from all walk of life whose sole purpose is to help you make a smooth transition from being a regular book reader to being an ebook reading fanatic.

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by john.hunt100

Hi everyone

first time poster here

I have order my Cybook Gen3 and have started to look at what is out there in the ebook world whilst I am waiting for it to be delivered. However what I would like is some sort of way of checking if a book is available in ebook form before I start trying to find it.

cheers
John

Welcome to the wonderful world of ebooks.

When I was in your situation a few weeks ago I used to google "book title" mobipocket, and found that useful.

I still do that occasionally, but am more likely to check Fictionwise, Mobipocket and other commercial sites. If you haven't already done so I suggest you check the Wikipedia mobile book page for a list of suppliers.

And of course I strongly suggest that you keep an eye on the mobipocket upload forum on this site. I've no idea how many books I have now, but most of them were free from this site, Mobipocket, or Feedbooks.

Regards, Alex

[wallcraft]

I always start by checking for a Kindle version. If there is one, then usually it is also available as a MOBI. However, since the Kindle version is only available to Kindle owners, the downsides to this are that sometimes there is only a Kindle version and often the Kindle price is less than at other sites.

There are only two DRMed MOBI wholesalers, so checking mobipocket.com and OverDrive should find all DRM-infested MOBI ebooks (I'm not sure if there are overdrive exclusive MOBIs, so checking mobipocket.com may be sufficient). Note that mobipocket.com always shows the list price, and so is almost always more expensive that other sellers of MOBI ebooks.

This approach can miss DRM-free ebooks, which is a shame since DRM-free is best. A few publishers have their own DRM-free sites (e.g. Baen), but FictionWise has the largest selection.

[john.hunt100]

thanks for your replies, some good tips for me. Well done to Gianfranco for getting the website on the go. just have to wait for my reader now

cheers

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by wallcraft

I always start by checking for a Kindle version. If there is one, then usually it is also available as a MOBI. However, since the Kindle version is only available to Kindle owners, the downsides to this are that sometimes there is only a Kindle version and often the Kindle price is less than at other sites.

The other advantage to buying from the Kindle ebook store is that it goes into your media library... which means it is backedup and readily available via whispernet.

I bought The Time Cavern from the Kindle store and with a little python magic also put it on my Sony 500 for my kids to read.

BOb