The delights of ebookery are many...

Let's see...? My kobo ereader arrived in July and my  ebook library now boasts over 600 titles. 

I have been a busy beaver.

Everything is in its place within Calibre  -- the extremely useful, the quintessential,  ebook management program -- and stored on my portable hard drive. As I decide to read a book I sync it from Calibre to my kobo ereader device. 

Consequently as culture and habits go I've been reading up a storm these last few months as my habit and preference  has shifted from hard copy to digital text. 

Evidence suggests that ebook owners and readers read more books when they turn away from hard copy. It figures. eBook readers are much lighter than books. More portable than books. They are a bookstore and extensive customized library held between two fingers.

All that stuff they feed you about alternatives to dedicated ebook readers: don't believe it. Laptops, iPads, tablets and such with their muli functionality don't provide what reading is all about. And contrary to the Luddite notion, books are not about smell and texture. Books are about reading thousands of words in comfort and ease...of your mind engaging with the text.

If McLuhan waxed on about the medium being the message  the primary medium is the text not the device. eBook reading is another way to access the medium of text.

I use a Kobo and you'll read stuff that will tell you that the Kobo isn't as flashy as the Kindle or the Nook. Apparently we are supposed to decide on what we read and how we read it  by ruling on the the way a book is bound. But there's only one rule as far as I'm concerned: epub -- and if you want a good read, you prefer all your stuff in epub format.

This is where the marriage of Kobo and Calibre kicks in. The Nook and the Kindle -- plus other ebook reader systems no doubt -- are closed systems designed to be online web store dependent.  Whereas  the Kobo -- and few other ebook readers unfortunately -- are open to delivering epub  and other formats regardless of where the book comes from (but certainly not not from Amazon in the Kindle file format).

So the reading world is your oyster in a way that the monopoly imposed by Kindle is not. 

However, if you think you'll be reading in the horrid format of pdf you need a bigger screen than what the Kobo offers. PDF of text alone in single column is easily converted to epub by using Calibre. But if your read is in paired (or several) columns with lot's of diagrams and graphics or in large size format -- little, light ereaders like Kobo won't suit. PDF after all is a format designed for printing. It is not an ebook format -- despite what the publishers try to make you believe. They like it because  they think it is easier to protect copyright by publishing in pdf rather than with epub (not really true ).

With Calibre there's a wonderful 'Get Books' button which will search the web for the book you're after and give you a range of sources to obtain it. If you want a particular book and want to read it on your Kobo I suggest your search and download within the Calibre options rather than do it via some other application -- like the crappy ebook program that comes with Kobo (which will restrict your search to the Kobo bookstore).

I also use the Calibre/Kobo partnership to read long web articles. If the article is long and I want to read it, rather than put up with all the scrolling required to read it online, I convert it to epub (a one click download) and sync it to my device for reading at leisure off line while out and about. 

Ah! eBookery is the best thing...since sliced bread.

Ebook publishing : Meatgrinder plus ISBN

While the business of formatting text for ebook publishing is intense and time consuming, I am amazed how user friendly the process can be once you have your file prepped. I created my own cover by using Picasa then uploaded cover and file to Smashwords  so that their "Meatgrinder" (real name) could take over.

I had the option so I decided to obtain a free ISBN from Smashwords despite the fact that I'm not 'in print'. (See below).

While having a published book is supposedly de rigueur for writers,  in my way of thinking, what ebookery does is make reading so much more accessible especially in the epub format. Online reading and scrolling past 1000 words sucks. With an ebook -- and Smashwords offers the reading file in many optional formats (see my example) -- you get to read what was written in many different ways.

And the edition is shared quickly and seamlessly over the web distributed as widely as you can foster your niche  market. 

This is indeed a revolution. Reading is easier, cheaper (often free), more accessible and more deferential of the writer. And for good or ill, you who write the book  are in control. 

I'm no stranger to online media, but ebookery in a sense is print's fight back without paper. All you need to do is get your head around it; and if you aren't exposing yourself to ebookery that's going to be difficult to comprehend. But the shift is underway big time as more ebooks are being distributed online than hard copy orders. 

For example, a recently released book may cost your over $AUD20 in hard copy. As an ebook -- despite the penchant for price fixing by Apple et al -- you may (should!) get it for under $AUD10.  A portable ereader device will cost you over a $AUD100  -- my Kobo Touch cost me $AUD129 as an import -- so it doesn't take long to do your accounting sums. 

I now walk around -- commute, lounge, etc -- with 145 ebooks on my ereader -- and I only received it a few weeks ago. I've collected all these titles from various sites across the web -- and my library was 90% free to collect.

And among the mix, I've added my own ebook. 

The folk at Smashwords sponsor an open publishing process free of DRM  constraints and with the author setting their preferred selling price ( or free or buyer sets the price). The platform also encourages you to consider reading (and supporting) the work of Indie authors.

I'm currently formatting and pulling together my next book, skilling up as I go.This will be another freebie...but after that who knows?

Congratulations. This email confirms your book, Girt By Sea, has been assigned the ISBN 978-1-4659-4281-4. ..An ISBN is a unique digital identifer. It's a number attached to your book that aids in the discoverability and merchandizing of your book as it is sold through retailers.
Smashwords distributes books to multiple online ebook retailers, including Apple, Barnes and Noble, Sony, Kobo and others. All of these retailers appreciate receiving books that have ISBNs, because their retail ecommerce systems are built to support them. The Apple iBookstore and the Sony ebook store require an ISBN if they are to carry your ebook.
Attached to your unique ISBN number is metadata associated with your book, such as your author name, the data of publication, the price, and much more. As you update your metadata, Smashwords will automatically report these updates to the International ISBN agency so the information associated with your book can stay up to date.
The US ISBN Agency is run by R.R. Bowker, which also compiles Books in Print, the world’s most comprehensive database of books published in the U.S. and abroad. Bowker licenses Books in Print to thousands of retailers (chain and independent bookstores) including Barnes and Noble, Borders, thousands of libraries, the top three search engines, and many mobile clients. If your book has an ISBN, it gets listed in Books in Print.
Your free listing in Books in Print makes your book even more discoverable online. If your book does not have an ISBN, it does not automatically appear in searches. Books in Print also has a bibliographic database that's available on the open Web at http://seo.bowker.com. This is regularly crawled and indexed by Google. Books without ISBNs are not in that database and therefore lack the benefit you now enjoy with this ISBN.
Please expect a lag time of several weeks before your information or future updates are disseminated through the online catalogs.
The International ISBN agency recommends that a different ISBN be assigned to each ebook format that you plan to distribute to retailers. This recommendation has been the source of much debate in the publishing industry. On one side, you have a small handful of large publishers who refuse to issue multiple ISBNs to their different ebook formats - they use one ISBN to cover all formats. The majority of large publishers assign unique ISBNs to each format they distribute.
Smashwords currently only distributes EPUB files to retailers, so we will assign your ISBN to your EPUB. Whether you choose to apply ISBNs to the other formats we will distribute in the future (such as MOBI) is up to you. At Smashwords, it has always been core to our mission that we give you, the author/publisher, as much control over your publishing decisions as possible, so the decision to apply multiple ISBNs to a single title is up to you.
Our current recommendation is that we think the EPUB-only ISBN is sufficient for most Smashwords authors and publishers. However, in the future, as the ebook supply chain becomes ever-more complex, we do agree with Bowker that there may be benefit to having different ISBNs associated with your different formats. As of this writing (March 2010), we don't yet support the ability for you to assign additional ISBNs to the other formats, though we do plan to support that soon.
To learn more about the benefits of ISBNs, see this article:
Publisher's Weekly - "Hooray for the ISBN" - http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/453723-Hooray_for_The_ISBN.php
Best wishes,
The Smashwords Team

Newbie storytime: How to publish your own ebook

Elsewhere I am experimenting with being a published ebook writer ... and soon to come will be a fully fledged ebook -- that is a digital book that has wing feathers large enough for solo flight .

The business of publishing was so easy that I have to share the DIY.

For those whose imagination is tweaked by my ebook enthusiasm and seeming ready skills: I used Mac PAGES app and the template where withall outlined here.

While it is easy to export any text to epub in PAGES the advantage of using the template is that you can easily control your table of contents/toc listing. Great for chapters and other headings -- sections of the text which can be accessed with a click from the automatically generated contents page.

PAGES also gives you an easy book cover option. Just bash some pretty graphics together.

I've also experimented with the cross platform open sourced SIGIL epub editor but PAGES is much easier to use and is more intuitive and far less cumbersome. There is also Stanza as an option to consider...plus others.

Epub making is easy but contents listing is not so straight forward and not every ebook in cyberspace offers contents page with links to places in the text.

It isn't an essential attribute but a great convenience.

I guess the simplest way to create an epub ebook is to import your file (pdf, doc, word, etc) into Calibre and convert it (while hoping for the best layout). Calibre and epub ebookery go together like ham and eggs.

Calibre is my new love.Awesome tool.

For my everyday generic file sharing I use wikispaces  and since wikispaces offers free accounts you can host your ebook file there so that the reader universe can download your wares. You don't need much in the way of online space to store your efforts as an ebook/epub version of Tolstoy's War and Peace weighs in at only 1.3MB.

Once you have your book you start promoting and distributing it. Create a Facebook page. Spam the relatives.

That kind of thing.

You could also use self publishing sites. Even Amazon will handle your epub book  and there are companies like Lulu  who will cut you a set publishing deal (80:20). How good these contracts are has been a matter of some dispute among self published authors. There are also other platforms , like Scibd who'll house your work in pdf format  for distribution. Again, check the chit chat before you commit your work to an other. 

If you want total control it is simple, do it solo. (Says he now that he has published all of 285.2 KB only yesterday.)

What I need, what we all need I guess, are online editors and proof readers (human beings that is who live somewhere in the clouds) , who'll vet your texts for errors of syntax and spelling...without charging too much of the money you don't have.

Otherwise, you'll have to rely on the fam and friends to red mark your errors while you argue whose style guide you are going to follow.

Since I cannot trust myself one iota, I respect editors so very much that I think they are as essential to human society as a good upbringing and comfortable shoes.

'Tis the noblest profession.

They aren't interfering sods. After decades of writing for publication I can say that Ed -- like father -- always knows best.

A useful although aligned over view

The Seven Secrets of Ebook Publishing Success - BAIPA May 14, 2011
View more presentations from Smashwords, Inc.

Postscript:The good thing about running with a sample exercise is that I get to play around and see how the file performs online and on a range of different ereader devices. So far I'm impressed -- while recognising where I need to tweak. If you read ebooks you know how the file can play up on your preferred reading device and how --since the book was most likely  created primarily for hard copy  reading -- layout isn't as interface friendly as it could be.

What have I learnt in the last 24 hours?

1. Create a cover that includes everything in the one  file image -- title, author, impact and pizzaz. You want the cover to be one complete graphic where bits don't wander off. 
2. If you add further images inside the body of the book resize them to fit any mobile device and locate the caption on/in the image so it doesn't float away from its home. Since many devices will only read black and white let that handicap rule your image and graphic selection.
3. Take care when selecting the size of your headings. On some devices the headers can grow bigger than big. 
4. Think ebook layout always. Indent isn't an option.
5. URL links are OK to include. In fact they're a great idea. And don't forget to include adds for yourself and your output.

I just read The Fry Chronicles (by Stephen Fry) which is the first publication to be published simultaneously as a conventionally printed book, an electronically enhanced eBook, a non-enhanced eBook, an audiobook narrated by Fry himself and an iOS application.  But the ebook format in epub wanders a bit and there are a few lessons  to be learnt from it about what not to do.

So here's a tip: unless you read ebooks (and a pdf aint an ebook) you won't know how to create them to your best advantage. They aren't a separate book species  but they need to be formatted and shaped to different effect.


This is my chosen route...

Ebook reading: balancing a whole library on the tip of a finger

"eBooks!"

Here I am mostly abed, racked by alternating fevers and chilling.At times I approach  the grand heights of delirium as my mind goes gah gah.

And I sleep. I fall in and out of slumber.

My diagnosis is that I am infected with a little something.

My prescription: bedrest and ebookery.

Ah what joys is it to have in your weak little hand (I need deploy but one to hold all my literature aloft)  100 plus  books. It's like balancing a whole library on  the tip of a finger.

(It isn't like that/it is that!)

And when I'm bored with author A I quickly jump to author B by letting my fingers do the jumping.

My bedridden state -- from which I have taken a quick respite only to drink tea, suck on an orange and upload my wisdom -- has confirmed so much what I love about the ebook universe. An ebook reader is another  Little Red Book  -- all you need to get you through the day and claim your share  in the Cultural Revolution.

It's like The Bible or The Koran but designed for those who prefer to customize their own holy writ. Many more stories too.

eBook Reader Sales have taken off.

That's not to say there aren't problems with ebooks. Price fixing is an issue.  DRM protection is a major technical handicap making access for some texts cumbersome. Publishers also pass off pdf files as ebooks when we all know reading pdf on screen -- esp 6 inch screens -- sucks...

But ebook readers have taken off and since they have garnered space in the hands of so many -- sales reached 12.8 million in the US  for 2010 --  the trend  is  a burgeoning one.

But I pity the poor biblioholic: there's hardly much fetish to be wrung from a wee ereader.  There's no smell. No bookworms. No floor to ceiling bookcase.  No paper. Nothing to dog leaf. 

If you are like me most of your library of ebooks will cost you zilch. I likem my books free. And from the comfort of my computer I can collect books from libraries and freebee sites  without sharing -- let alone using --my credit card details. 

I also know that it is so easy to self publish ebooks. Anyone can do it alone and unassisted -- so that would-be authors become 'published authors' as soon as the upload is out there. And, in the main, when you buy the self published product at least 80 percent of the money  goes directly to the author. All of it if they've published solo.

I keep telling my associates who publish stuff in hard copy to minuscule markets -- that ebookery is the way to go. Maybe now and then they'll try to pass off a bit of pdf as an online share -- but unless you are flogging comics or manuals, text does better as epub -- the standard ereader file format.

Text  really takes off as epub. 

eReading the eBooks: an update.

I've been transferring my library of books on the IPad to the Kobo eReader . To my surprise -- using Calibre -- it works. It is a simple drag and drop then import. I was using several eReader apps on the iPad and I'm working through my ePub and pdf content . Of course the Kindle app is a closed shop and a few others are DRM locked up...

I'm looking forward to converting the pdfs to ePub format (using Calibre) as for text the reading experience is much better on ePub than the cumbersome pdf. 

From Calibre it is an easy one click to sync content to the library on board the Kobo eReader. 

Now that I have over 30 titles on the Kobo it is remarkable how fickle I can be -- here reading from one novel, then reading something else before browsing to a different text...with access to  all content a finger touch away. 

It's like having a library browser -- and I still haven't set up wifi yet! (That also mean I don't as yet have Adobe DRM reader on board. Bugger.)

Update:  I do now have Adobe on board and it was a simple business once Adobe Digital Editions was installed on my desktop computer of simple transferring the books across. That means I can now read books offered by my local  digital public library for the time specified by each loan. They appear on Kobo as per the standard interface . Of course I cannot convert these titles to ePub if they are in locked up  pdf... but why! why! offer anyone a novel in pdf! But hey, they do...

Handy Tip: Zamzar is a free online converter which allows you to convert Kindle to ePub/PDF for Kobo.

Kobo:Walking around with a whole library in my pocket

I always have books to hand. Mainly public library books.

I like to read.

It expands the mind.

But now that my Kobo eReader has arrived my 'mind' has been zipped. The device is smaller and lighter than I expected. After using our domestic shared iPad, these attributes of the Kobo come as something of a shock.

It's the size of a standard envelope  stuffed with a very long letter (or a couple of handkerchiefs). Reading on the Kobo is like reading a pamphlet.

So when it comes to digital reading I can tell you now that size does matter. The Kobo makes the iPad look like Godzilla and weighs as much as a small cup of tea.

"Look mum! I'm reading one handed."

Would I have preferred a bigger screen? Thus far I can say that my reading of pdf has not been a great experience even though the Kobo is supposed to be pdf  friendly. But then pdf is such a painful reading experience on any computer or device because pdf is a printer's format.

And with pdf size does matter:  with pdf you need a screen that presents the content at actual size.

PDF is a layout format. For large format pdf -- like manuals and such with illustrations -- forget the Kobo. Ditto for colour. (Comic lovers take note).

For standard pdf text documents, my response  has been to convert them with Calibre to ePub format and enjoy much more that reading experience. Conversion is one click easy and Calibre 'sends to' your device with another tap on the mouse.

But if your pdf files are DRM protected...you'll be stuck with reading pdf.

Damn  dat DRM.

How does Kobo compare to the Ipad? Well, the distractions aren't there, are they? There are no Angry Birds or  Googling to distract you from the coal face of reading.  It's for reading books (although a crude web browser is on board). The screen is kinder on the eyes. The battery life is exponentially much longer. You can put Kobo in your pocket, whereas the Ipad is like a satchel. *

Like a mobile phone it is your take anywhere device.

When I was studying in the late sixties, my fashionable vogue was to walk around campus with a Penguin paperback stuffed in my jacket pocket, ever ready for a squiz. The costuming was such a pose. The Kobo reprises such  style, except instead of one book I can walk around with a whole library in my pocket.

I could load the Kobo with all the 100 Classic Books You Must Read Before You Die plus The Complete Works of William Shakespeare  and  Karl Marx's Capital  ( or tackle Joyce's Ulysses again) without feeling the weight... or the price, as I can get almost all this suff as free download from the libraries in the clouds. If I buy online, I can limit myself to $10 a purchase and still 'fill my cart' with tens of thousands of books.Even public libararies are enlarging their ebook offerings. No wonder research confirms that with ebook readers, people read more.According to an IDC study from March 2011, sales for all e-book readers worldwide gained to 12.8 millions in 2010 but since then a Pew Internet and American Life study has found that eBook reader ownership in the United States has doubled between November 2010 and May 2011 from 6 to 12 percent. Amazon now sells more ebooks than hard copy books. For self publishing and distribution, ereadership changes the  game for writers such that now even Amazon (and many other distributors) will carry self published texts.

* I wondered whether the addition of listening to mp3 files would add to my 'reading' experience on such a portable device. Kobo doesn't do mp3.  But then I walk around hands free when I listen to mp3 files, trudging the land, and my mp3 player hangs from a cord around my neck. I can listen to any audio book that way if I want to. So why do I want to complicate matters by setting aside a means to carry an eReader-- or a tablet -- just so I can listen to stuff? Multi functional devices demand a trade off and just as I don't demand of Charles Dickens that he talk to me, I'm not in the market for a Swiss army knife eReader.

eBooking the web using Calibre and other tools

The Calibre ebook reader interface.

Just as I was making the jump into ebookery mode, Borders Group Inc., the second-largest U.S. bookstore chain, has canceled an upcoming bankruptcy auction and will now close its doors.

Perhaps that was expected...but the ebook reader I'm waiting on is the Kobo Touch which was, until a moment ago,  distributed by Borders. However, in a quick-to-follow announcement, Kobo has pointed out  that Kobo and Borders are not joined at the hip and the company -- and its device -- will proceed with its own independent business plan.

What me worry?

While I've been waiting for my device to arrive I've been exploring ebookery options and experimenting with what's on offer that could be incorporated in my future ebook lifestyle.

The main activity that has engaged me has been to utilize and master Calibre

 calibre is free and open source e-book computer software that organizes, saves and manages e-books, supporting a variety of formats. It also supports e-book syncing with a variety of popular e-book readers...calibre is primarily an e-book cataloging program....calibre supports the conversion of many input formats to many output formats...(Ref)

Despite the fact that I don't as yet have a separate  e-book reading device to sync to, Calibre has proven extremely useful as my reading hub as it has enabled me to construct a library of texts in a wide range of file formats.

So I  started to collect stuff as fancy dictated without having a portable device in which to carry it about.

But aside form the usual online offerings (eg:novels, pdf articles,etc) in various standard ebook type formats, which I could download and read later offline, I  discovered  a couple of very useful online tools that could feed my calibre library so that I did not have to read all my online material as a web page.

• dotEPUB is software in the cloud that allows you to convert any webpage into an e-book. What this means is that any page  of a length that I want to read later, I can convert  to an epub format, download and read at my leisure in the same way I'd read a hard copy book or magazine.
  
• Convert HTML to PDF Online  is a useful conversion tool for those sites where images and diagrams are a key part of your reading experience.

What this means is that the the most cumbersome task of any online existence -- that of having to read large swags of text or long articles -- is sublimated by converting them into a  brain friendlier format. 

So for me, this means when I'm confronted with more than 1000 words of text online which I  want to read, I epub it; or when I'm dealing with a complicated DIY article with illustrations as to technique and method, I convert it to PDF and download it. I still read/study the material on a  computer  but  the 'pages' are easier to read than they would be if they were web pages and online.

Here are these two options for this post and this page:

Convert this page to a PDF

Give them both a try.

Everything you wanted to know about eBooks but were too ignorant to ask

The truly great pain about eBookery is the rampant confusion. When you go down the ebook route you are confronted with a plethora of formats, apps and devices such that the seeming straightforward task -- like reading text -- is complicated by boutique obstacles.

And when you get into DRM -- digital rights management -- you are sure to get a digital headache.

Since I am negotiating my own journey on the fly, I've been there and done that as I find my way. 

But here's a tip: MobileRead. With forums and an extensive wiki, MobileRead will lay out a FAQ knowledge base for you with a large engaged community to keep your confusion at bay. The wiki is well worth the visit. 

I subscribe to many  ebook info feeds which you are welcome to subscribe to if you want:

 Atom Feed

But as they say too much knowledge/too much information can be a bad thing and much ebook discourse seems to be ruled not by literature but gadgetry fetishes. If you want to just read the stuff someone writes then MobileRead is worth the bookmark.

In search of an eBook Reader

The Kobo eReader Touch, an Amazon Kindle, an Aluratek 

Libre Air, and a Barnes & Noble Nook, left to right, are

 displayed in this photo, in New York, Tuesday, June 14, 2011. 

When the Kindle was new, in 2007, it cost $399. Now, e-book

 readers, including a Kindle, can be had for just north of $100.

Since I can own up to possessing an iPad -- my daughter works for Apple -- I have been exposed to a number of tablet apps for ebook reading. You do get to choose on the iPad: Stanza, Kindle, iBooks, Kobo, Nook and Ibis -- are among those that have demanded my readership.

Sure there is a difference in the way they allow you to read -- but the bottom line is that you want  the text there in front of you in a comprehensible format with gadgetry enough to bookmark where you last left off.

Maybe I am undemanding -- but I'm also not necessarily gadget obsessed. I just think that ebookery is the way to go.

The iPad exposure to the way you can hold the digital universe in your hot little hand and read merrily away -- page after page -- has changed forever my reading  assumptions. Reading on a standard computer screen mousing away sucks. Printing hard copies of what you download to read sucks....

My problem however is domestic: I cannot easily get near the iPad because we're sharing the device with a significant other and that other does a lot of things on the iPad beside read books.

So you have to book in. 

Bugger that, I say. I want to possess my own library and read it in my own good time.

My other complication is that with all the ebook applications available to you on the iPad -- including a range of pdf readers -- I ended up with literature all over the device, hidden in the many book nook and crannies that make up the iPad universe. All ebooker apps aren't equal and they seek to tie you into their market niche.

Of course you could stick with Amazon or iBooks ... but why would you want to do that , especially when there is so much more free stuff available from elsewhere and the Kindle won't read the standard ebook file format, epub. 

So you end up not with a library but several.

It is indeed a headache. 

Maybe there is a work around by just using the one or two apps...but with all the other stuff, all the other comings and goings and syncing on an iPad -- you lose track of the texts you may want to hord. 

So I thought: why don't I get another device primarily to read with?

Simple, right?

Wrong.

Now with the advance of the Androids and other tablets that mutiskill ,  substituting for ipad functionality ain't an easy choice. Why just read when you can also listen? And why just listen when you can also watch video...or access the web 24/7? It's the same ole same ole mobile phone thing where you can do anything with it but sit on it...

But do you? 

All I want to do is read a book. In 2011 that puts me amongst the dinosaurs. 

...and ebook readers that only ebook read  are supposedly a bit passe.

I disagree. Price matters, for starters, ( esp to me) and ebook readers are getting much cheaper than their jack-of-all-trades brothers and sisters. You'd hope that an ebook reader would do one task well as its primary function and raison d'etre.

The other issue is a question of what the device will or won't read and if you want an open existence with a free range possibility you won't be going down the Kindle route.

This is where it gets hard to decipher one device from another...even if it has to come down to what you can actually get. 

For me it came down to the Nook versus the Kobo. 

I chose Kobo Touch.

It's cheaper (I bought mine for $AUD131). It isn't tied to a singular bookstore. It reads more formats than the others and is open to a world view rather than be enclosed in the one bookshop chain. 

Although the Kobo is distributed by Borders (who have gone dramatically bust) it is a product developed by a separate Canadian company.

But look at the mathematics of getting an ebook reader ...such as the Kobo:

• Outlay of $131.00
• Tens of thousands of downloadable,  totally free books and other text based items across the web. A whole library of classics in text, pdf, epub and whatever else can be read away from the confines of brutal copyright. Try a search sampling.
• With an online program like dotEPUB I can convert any webpage into ePub format for reading on an ebookery device at my offline convenience.   
• Browser based web access with wifi (as well as usb).
• Library fees (see note below) cost.

Click the dotepub link and see: awesome! You quickly get an epub file to read so easily at your own convenience. I've now added the epub option to all my posts.

Is the Kobo the best ebook reader?  I don't know. If I was in the habit of reading newly published best seller books and buying them for a high tech read I'm sure it isn't. But at my niche, entry  level needs it seems to suit.

Nor is Kobo the most technically sophisticated ebook reader...

The knack is, however, that rather than rely on your Kobo software you pair it with the awesome free and open sourced Calibre to help download books and organise your library -- a library that I will be able to access  from one digital place. (By the way, Kobo is based on Linux).

So I'm happy with my choice...I'll be happier when I actually get my hot little hands on the Kobo as none can be purchased within Australia as Borders, the local distributor, have sold out all their stock. (it's like they were marketing their own suicide note). So you need to go offshore to get your Kobo.

Library Fees Cost

I'm primarily a library user and the Brisbane City Council Library Service is an amazing community resource. But the coporatisation of council services has meant that there have been a progressive charge hike for borrowing books. The trick is that if you want specific books you need to place a hold on them and holding books so that you can pick them up when available costs you money as does overdue loans.

Since I have moved 40 kms from Brisbane, picking up and returning books is no longer so straightforward as it was when I lived BCC library local. The inconvenience and cost of my reading habits have  risen as a consequence. 

eBookery therefore looks better and better...

UPDATE: What I'm doing now

While I'm waiting for my mobile reader to arrive I an using Calibre to organise all my reading matter as I expect that I will continue to use Calibre rather than the cumbersome kobo bookshelfing offerings. I also registered and installed Adobe Digital Editions as my local library has an ebook collection running through that DRM licence. Even using Calibre or my Desktop ereader -- the Mac Reader --  reading matters are very easy  in eReader style such that I cannot see myself tolerating any longer all that online scrolling -- I've never become accustomed to --  in order to read large swags of text. With eReaders a page turns with the flick of a few muscles -- a click or a mouse wheel scroll -- back or forth. As I master the online e[ub catalogue I'll have less need to actually physically vist a building to collect hard copies.

Book Review: Jump Rope Training Jump Rope Training by Buddy Lee

Jump Rope Training by Buddy Lee

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
There's strength, flexibility, concentration...and coordination.It is this last attribute that is normally associated with very few exercise regimes. You may need co-ordination to row a skiff or push a bicycle but once you've attained that skill it's, ummm, like riding a bike.

Buddy Lee was once a champion wrestler who developed an inordinate amount of skill as a rope jumper. He then went on to explore rope jumping as a means to supplement other training modalities.So if you do another sport Lee wants to explain how skipping can make you better at it.

So he delivers a very comprehensive theory of rope jumping and outlines some intense training programs that you can adapt and integrate into your schedule.

Book Review: Strength Training for Seniors

STRENGTH TRAINING FOR SENIORS by Michael Fekete

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
I've made it a habit to read a few exercise books. The practice of exercise has changed so much that it is hard to keep up with best world practice. My complication is that I'm 60 years old and suffering from Fibromyalgia so the standard approach of most texts to get you to work long and hard is not something I want to do.