Being now a 'indie' e-pub author, I thought I should have a 'tablet'-type e-reader and also an e-ink reader. I bought first a Nook. I did this because I thought I'd eventually 'root' the Nook to get a cheap Android device. The Nook is a terrific piece of hardware and I'm sure that when I do finally root it, it will be a superb Android pad. People I know who have already rooted their Nooks have confirmed it.
But as an e-reader (for books), the Color Nook does have its disadvantages. One of the less known is the character-set the Nook supports. With the Nook (unlike the later Kindles which support just about every alphabet you might want) you get the normal QUERTY keyboard character set, and a few extra symbols. I found this out the hard way: One of my books required a few Old-English characters. Kindle handled them just fine, but some of them didn't work at all in the Nook. I've no idea how (or if) B&N will sell Nooks in, say, Russia, or even in South America for that matter. I had a similar experience with another book which used some equations. For the Nook version, I had to capture a screen shot of the equations in a word processor, then make a jpeg from the equations and insert them as images into the text. This has its limitations of course as, unlike text, images don't scale.
The main problem with the Nook (IMO) isn't the hardware, or even the software per se, but the B&N company. They have a miserable (and fully justified, in my opinion) reputation for customer service and responsiveness. One of my colleagues tried to e-pub a book on B&N. Once the book uploaded, the B&N site, for weeks, said 'processing'. My colleague then e-mailed the company for help, got no answer, e-mailed them again, and then again. Eventually, he got a response saying he'd get a e-mail the following day. He did. The e-mail was an advertisement for a Nook. In the last week, some organization came out with a list of the best and worst companies for customer service. I was not surprised to see B&N on the worst list.
My own personal annoyance is with the recent version 1.2 software upgrade. Along with some cool features, a sample of a Good Housekeeping cookbook was also downloaded to all Nooks. And this cookbook could not be erased from one's nook. The last thing I wanted was a frilly, flower-infested book cover on my Nook screen. That is when I decided it was time to root my nook. (I wonder what you call a rooted Nook. A Nanook, perhaps. [Nanook, BTW, means polar bear in Inuktituk]. How about Nyanook?)
I've just bought the required memory card and will root soon.
On the other hand, my experience with Amazon has been nothing but good. Their websites (unlike B&N's) are well-constructed, they promote their author's books, they make it easy for authors to interact with the readers, and (I've been told) they're good at providing help.
I do hope B&N gets its act together. As much as I like Amazon/Kindle (except for Kindle not using the industry-standard epub format), I think it's healthier if there is more than one great power in the e-publishing world.
How about a Nyuk?
ReplyDeleteI have an iPad with a bunch of reader apps. I'd like to get an eInk reader, but I'm waiting for standards to settle a bit. The Kobo reader aspires to be a generic reader, but I'm not sure if it really is.
I have to read my B&N books using the Nook app, and my Amazon books using the Kindle app. Borders uses the Kobo app. Bluefire is an app which, like Kobo, aspires to be universal, but there is no hardware reader. Kobo and Bluefire are the recommended apps for reading epub books from the interlibrary loan system, and Bluefire has internal links to several small booksellers. There must be a way to add stores, but I haven't discovered it yet. I understand you can port B&N books, but there is some tricky unlocking needed.
The interlibrary loan system uses Adobe to handle its DRM, which annoys me somewhat; I don't like having them potentially be gatekeepers or recordkeepers of the library books I check out. But I guess DRM has to be handled somehow, and at least they provide a standard of sorts.
I hadn't heard the bad press about B&N. I haven't had any bad experiences with them. They do have some asinine policies -- using your credit card number as a password to unlock an ebook is one of them. Pity. I like the look and feel of the Nook better than the Kindle. But what I really want is one reader that will read any ebook I get from whatever source, and in which I can arrange the book files any way I wish. Until then, I'll probably stick with the iPad.
Hi, Claire. (You're my first visitor. Thank you.)
ReplyDeleteWhen our local Borders went under, I bought (for 70% off) a Kobo reader to go with my Nook. I thought, as a nascent e-pubber, I should own a tablet as well as an Eink reader. The Kobo's not bad. It supports a number of formats, including what seems to be the industry standard: epub. I port books (already stored on my computer) to the Kobo by copying them to a memory card and then popping the card into the Kobo.
I'll have to look up Bluefire. I must admit I've never heard of it.