Up until now, JK Rowling had not let the book into the ebook reading world. She once said she though books should be enjoyed as books, but I guess she has had a change of heart. It seems like it was an inevitability that it would get there eventually.

It does seem notably absent from the Kobo bookstore though.

I first started reading ebooks on a small Palm device with a monochrome screen and low resolution. I read a lot of books on that device. It was part of why when the Kindle ebooks with their monochrome eInk screens came out, I could see they would be a great solution for a lot of people.

Since that time the devices I use for ebook reading have changed. My first upgrade was to a higher resolution Palm pilot, which still worked fine. Then I moved up to a Nokia N770 tablet. Despite having a much larger and much higher resolution color screen, the reading experience wasn’t that much better on that device. More text was displayed on the screen, but it was a bit bigger, a bit bulkier and the screen had quite a bit more glare. I still used it though, because I always had the device with me, so I could pull it out whenever I had some time to read. My current devices for reading consist of two devices, each much the same. One is a fourth generation iPod touch. It makes an excellent ebook reading device. It has an excellent screen and is miniscule in size and weight making it very portable. My primary device for reading now though is my Android phone, an Optimus V from Virgin mobile. Why? Despite the fact the screen resolution and clarity is not as good, I always have it with me and I often end up reading when I have time. It works fine for me, which is not to say it is for everyone, but I find the small size and the convenience of always having it has prevented getting an eink device a priority.

I have often thought of getting an eink device, but even now, where they are so affordable as to make it almost an impulse purchase, I think of the fact that I would then have two devices to deal with. I might use the eink device at home, but I am pretty sure I would never bring it with me, because I wouldn’t want to carry two devices and I know if I want to read, I can do so on my phone, unless I am outside in the sun. Up until this point this has continued to be enough to prevent me from getting something else. As for the tablets, such as the Nook tablet, the Kindle Fire, the iPad, or the various Android tablets, I often think these would be nice to have as well. But they are bigger, they are heavier, and again, for reading they don’t really offer any benefit to me over something like an iPod touch or my phone. The only benefit would be having more text on the screen per page, so you wouldn’t have to tap the screen as much to turn the page. For that advantage, you have to give up the portability a smaller device provides. For that reason, I haven’t bought one of those either. I can certainly see their appeal, but I already have a laptop, a netbook, a phone, and I don’t see how adding yet another device to my life would make it better.

So the point of this post is to simply point out for someone considering reading ebooks for the first time to possibly look at some of the devices you already own. Just because something is not labeled as an ebook reader, doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work well for that purpose. Just because ebook readers are roughly the size of existing books doesn’t make them better. Books are the size they are because to make them smaller would result in a book too thick to comfortable handle. Electronic devices don’t have that problem. In fact the device I think might get me to buy a stand alone ebook reader would be an eink device with a screen the size of a phone or iPod touch. One that was easily pocketable and had amazing battery life. Something the size of an iPod touch, but with an eink display. The iPod touch fills that spot nicely for the moment, but if you didn’t need all of its added functionality, an equivalent eink device would be nice to have.

I came home and fired up Google to see if I had missed something. Had Harry Potter been released? This is one of the books I always use as an example when people ask me about ebook readers and which one they should buy. I tell them ebook readers are great and all but just be aware that not ALL books are available as ebooks, for example, Harry Potter, and they are usually quite surprised to discover this and I think a lot of people don’t find out about this until they go to buy the books and can’t find them.

The only articles I could find about Harry Potter and Sony ereaders were from around August when it was announced Harry Potter had an agreement with Sony. I found other more recent articles saying the Harry Potter ebooks had been pushed back and wouldn’t be available until sometime in 2012.

I couldn’t find anything to say that if you bought a Sony ebook reader, you would be able to get a copy of Harry Potter to read on it right now. You might get a coupon so you could download it when it comes out, but it doesn’t seem to be out. Wouldn’t advertising an ebook reader with what is arguably one of the most popular books of all time, when that book is not available for that reader, be false advertising?

First off, despite the fact the Kindle and the Nook color are both built off the same platform, the formats they support out of the box are different. If you want to buy books for your Kindle, then go to Amazon.com. If you want to buy books for your Nook color, then you can go to Barnes and Noble.com. If you have some other ebook reader or tablet, you will need to find out what formats your device supports and act accordingly. Apple devices can get books from the Apple store with the iBooks App, or you can install the Kindle or Nook Apps and use them to buy from either of those stores as well. If you have an Android device, you can buy books from the Google bookstore in the Android market. This website is, and has always been, more about how to get books that are FREE and LEGAL and how to convert them so they can be read on whatever device you happen to have. In that spirit, that is what I am going to talk about today, for the new ebook/tablet owner that is looking for information.

The first thing you will want to know about is the Gutenberg Project. This is a collection of public domain ebooks readily available in a variety of formats for most of the current popular devices. When getting books from Gutenberg, if you have a Nook, you are going to want the ePub format which is an open standard. If you have a Kindle you are going to want the Kindle format, which is really an adaptation of a format called MobiPocket. If you are using a tablet or an iPad, you can download whatever you want as long as you have an App for the format you want to read installed on your device. This is not necessarily just Kindle or Nook or Apple or Google. If you are using Android, I highly recommend you grab fbReader to read ePub documents from Gutenberg. Again, these books are free, as they are in the public domain. Amazon, and Barnes and Noble may offer some of the same titles for free, but of course they will be willing to sell them to you as well. Always check Gutenberg first to see if what you want is there. It is a great opportunity to read some of the old classics as well.

If you obtain a book that you want to read on your device, but it is not in a compatible format, you are going to need to convert it before you can read it on your device. You can use our conversion pages here. There is also some excellent software that makes the process a little more user friendly called Calibre. It automates the process of converting back and forth between many of the most popular ebook formats and helps you keep track of your library as well.

One thing you are going to find different about having an ebook reader is if a book isn’t in the public domain and you have to buy every book you want to read, the costs can add up pretty fast. Not a lot of people bought EVERY book they read before ebooks. You got them from friends or borrowed them, etc.. This is where your local library comes in. Many libraries now have ebooks available and you don’t even have to set one foot in your library to get them. Go to the website of your local library to see what they have to offer. Chances are they have more than you think, but you might have to wait for them for awhile. They don’t have an unlimited number of copies of each title and with all the new ebook readers out there, there can be some lengthy wait times for the more popular titles. However, you can get new current titles from your local library for free. If you don’t already have a library card with the local library you may need to go in to sign up, but once you have one you can browse and borrow without even leaving your house. While you are there, you may also want to ask if they have any cooperative exchange programs with other libraries in the area. Some libraries do this allowing members of a nearby library to also get a membership to their library. This opens up even more selection and since you don’t have to go to the library it doesn’t matter if it is a little farther away.

One last thing that no one probably told you about your ebook reader. Some books simply are not available in ebook format. You may be surprised to find, for example, that to date the Harry Potter series is still not available in ebook format, so don’t be surprised if you can’t find some titles in the online bookstore.

For the books that are available though, reading books on an electronic device is very convenient. Good luck and welcome to the ebook reading world. If you like reading books, hopefully you will love reading ebooks.

The New Nook color comes at a $50 premium to the Kindle Fire and the first generation Nook color has been lowered to the same price as the Kindle Fire. Is it worth the extra $50? Well, in a straight up hardware only comparison, the extra $50 gives you 8GB more onboard memory and twice the RAM as well as an SD slot so you can add your own media. Hands down, for these features alone, it is worth the extra money. The fact that the Kindle Fire does not have an SD slot is a big issue in my opinion as I observed when it was first announced. When compared with the now $199 Nook, it is definitely also worth buying the newer device.

Also, it has Netflix support out of the Box. Amazon plays media offered by their own website and through their Amazon Prime service, which is all well and good, but they have not announced if it will support Netflix or Hulu Plus yet. I expect at some point in the future they will, but the Nook 2 already has.

Add this all up and the Nook looks like the better deal at the moment.

Neither device offers a camera or a microphone, so they are definitely consumption only devices. If the possibility of wanting to use the device for voice or video calls is anything you might ever consider, then you might want to consider something else, but for surfing the web, reading books, or consuming media, either the Kindle or the Nook Color 2 should work just fine.

The device looked all well and good. It was faster than the Nook, had a color screen, but some of my issues with it were no expandable storage, no camera, and a partial implementation of Android without access to the Android Market. The device is not even going to be released until mid November, but supposedly, they are already selling 25,000 units per day. The thing the Kindle Fire really had going for it was the price. A 7 inch tablet for only $199.

Today though, you can pre-order another 7″ color tablet. The Lenovo ideaPad A1 for the same price as the Kindle. It runs the same operating system, but not crippled, and it has access to the Android Market? It also has front and rear facing cameras, memory expandability, bluetooth, and gps. They also both have the same screen resolution. It will also be released two weeks before the Kindle Fire. The Fire arguably has a better CPU, but does that really matter for reading books? Also the Processor in the IdeaPad A1 is faster than the processor in the Nook color, which has had wide acceptance as being fast enough, and it is $50 cheaper than the Nook color, which also has no cameras.

It makes the Ideapad seem like a downright steal. Since the price of the Kindle Fire and the IdeaPad A1 are the same, what can one do that the other cannot.

The Ideapad will be able to be used for Navigation with its GPS. It will be able to store much more data through its expansion slot. It will be able to be used with external devices like headsets, keyboards and mice, through its bluetooth interface. It will be able to be used for video calls with its front facing camera and it will be able to take pictures with its rear facing camera. It will also have full access to the Market and all it has to offer including access to the Nook ebook Reader Application as well as the Kindle.

What will the Kindle Fire be able to do that the IdeaPad will not? Well, it really comes down to the faster processor, but the IdeaPad should be fast enough to read bbooks, surf the web, and play flash video, so what exactly will the faster processor allow the Kindle Fire to do that the IdeaPad will not?

When taking all this into consideration. It looks like the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 is what the Kindle Fire should have been. This makes the Kindle Fire, which looked like a steal when it was announced last week, look like it needs to be about $50 cheaper today. Otherwise, I would choose the IdeaPad over the Kindle Fire.

Today they announced the release of their new models and along with them, very attractive prices. Of course everyone is going to be comparing the new color model, the Kinlde Fire, to tablets, just as they did with the Nook, but Amazon is definitely not going for the full tablet market. You can tell because the device does not have any expandable memory, it doesn’t have any cameras, and it doesn’t even have a microphone. Excluding all these things and keeping it what it is, an ebook reader and media player, let them keep the price down. Kudos to them for doing that.

Will it erode some sales of tablets? Maybe. For what I use a tablet for, this would probably work pretty well except for one thing, and that is the memory limitation. It has no external memory expansion capability. If I want to use it as a media device, and I have to use it with a wifi connection, The internal memory available isn’t going to cut it for any kind of video content. Maybe you can store media on the cloud, but it won’t be available when you don’t have wifi access.

I think the omission of an sd card slot will be this devices Achilles heal. I think it is a huge mistake. I understand they want people to use it with Amazon’s media and cloud services, but why prevent them from being able to add storage? Would it really have brought the price up that much? Also, if it is being marketed as a media device to access all of Amazon’s video content, how can it not have an HDMI port? You have all this content available, as long as you watch it on your 7″ screen.

It is an interesting announcement. The part of it I found most interesting though was not the Kindle Fire, it was their new base model Kindle without a keyboard on the bottom, for under $80. That is intriguing and definitely brings the Kindle down to the realm of a good Christmas gift.

The color Kindle Fire will probably get the most attention though, but I think Nook, who always seems a step ahead of Kindle, will probably have something even better available here soon. Since Amazon has very aggressive pricing, Nook will have to do the same with whatever they come out with too. Competition is a wonderful thing.

Audiobooks are great to listen to when you can’t dedicate yourself 100% to reading, but have some time where you can listen to audio. Your daily commute, for example. Listening to audiobooks does take more concentration than listening to music, for me anyway. I find I can’t really listen to them if I am trying to do mental work and sometimes, even if I am driving, I often have to rewind sections if I get focused on a task because I might miss some of it. They are great if you are a passenger though or if you have some time where you are doing something that doesn’t require a lot of concentration.

Audiobooks tend to be rather expensive. I imagine it must be historical. Take a well known book as an example. You can buy the hardcover of “The Lightning Thief” on Amazon for $9.67; the paperback for $7.99; the Kindle edition for $5.59; the movie for $12.20, but the audio book at audible.com is $23.95, and that is a cheap audiobook. I suspect it probably has something to do with how much it used to cost to produce all of the CDs that were needed for an audiobook.

There are a lot of alternative ways to get audiobooks. The best is your local library. Most libraries have a large collection of audiobooks available. Older books were available on tape. Now, they are available on CD, on stand alone self contained media players, like play away, and through electronic lending programs like oneclickdigital.com or overdrive.com where you can download electronic copies directly to your own device or burn them to CD without having to leave the comfort of your own home.

The best selection, at least from my local library, seems to be their collection on CD. You can either listen to them on any CD player, or easily rip them so you can still listen to them on your portable media player.