Question about B&N ebooks

[texasnightowl]

So, when B&N first intro'd the nook and began selling ebooks, I didn't really pay attention because I have a K1 and was buying mostly from Amazon and Fictionwise. But I did remember hearing that one of their primary formats was ereader/pdb which I have absolutely no interest in dealing with. Basically, I'll only buy epub or mobi.

Fast forward to now and fictionwise is for most purposes dead, so I'm looking around to other sources...B&N, Kobo, Books on Board. (I have no intention of putting Sony software on my PC which leaves out Sony.) Obviously I know I can get epub from both Kobo and BoB (and mobi as well from BoB), but I'm wondering about B&N - how many do they still do in ereader vs epub? I've downloaded their free classics during the promotion going on which are all epub. I've downloaded a few more freebies which also turned out to be epub. Are some of their titles still ereader? And is there any way to tell yet before downloading which format it will be?

[ATDrake]

They've been trying to switch over completely to ePub, and all their titles have been converted/redone in that format, including the old stuff in their customers' archives.

But they ran into problems with Mac users and the official B&N Reader app for Mac randomly choking and dying on selected new DRM-ed ePubs, and they've had to eat a lot of complaints and refunds over the past couple of months, if the B&N message boards are anything to go by.

As a stopgap measure, they switched the website downloads for Mac users (and presumably persons pretending to have a Mac by spoofing their browser's user-agent string to say so) back over to eReader format.

So if anyone happens to want any files in PDB, then I advise them to borrow or spoof a Mac long enough to download everything in their libraries while it lasts.

Otherwise, it's all ePub for everyone else (and also for Snow Leopard users via the new NookStudy app).

Hope this helps.

[texasnightowl]

Awesome...that does help. I'm on a PC, so happy to hear everything should now be epub. Thanks!

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

They've been trying to switch over completely to ePub, and all their titles have been converted/redone in that format, including the old stuff in their customers' archives.

But they ran into problems with Mac users and the official B&N Reader app for Mac randomly choking and dying on selected new DRM-ed ePubs, and they've had to eat a lot of complaints and refunds over the past couple of months, if the B&N message boards are anything to go by.

As a stopgap measure, they switched the website downloads for Mac users (and presumably persons pretending to have a Mac by spoofing their browser's user-agent string to say so) back over to eReader format.

So if anyone happens to want any files in PDB, then I advise them to borrow or spoof a Mac long enough to download everything in their libraries while it lasts.

Otherwise, it's all ePub for everyone else (and also for Snow Leopard users via the new NookStudy app).

Hope this helps.

Just curious: Why would some want to spoof a Mac?

[ATDrake]

To get the eReader downloads for their B&N books, if they can. There've been a couple of people on these forums who've said they were disappointed/cautious about B&N's switchover because their preferred device took PDBs but not DRM-ed ePubs or some similar concern.

And as far as I've been able to tell, anyone on a non-Mac computer browsing the B&N website still gets ePubs, though I could be wrong.

So if you didn't have access to a friend's/school's Mac, then maybe you could get it via spoofing so that the B&N server at least thinks you're on one and sends the desired format, though this is another thing I could be wrong about.

[texasnightowl]

Another question while we're on the topic of B&N ebooks...does the ebates 6% cash back thing work? Any one know?