Nook and ereader.com NOT compatible?

[Kerry Lannert]

FYI: I just got an email from Barnes & Noble letting me know that my
eReader.com-purchased books are NOT compatible with nook. "At this time,
the Barnes & Noble eReader is only compatible with purchases made from
Barnes & Noble or Fictionwise." I responded requesting clarification,
seeing as how the device specifications clearly state that eReader is
one of the supported formats, but I'm prepared to cancel my order
entirely if it's not compatible with the 70+ eReader books I already
have. What a disappointment.

- Kerry

[Bert Latamore]

I can't believe that. Since B&N owns eReader it only seems logical to combine all the formats of its ebook properties on the one device.

--
Bert Latamore
IT Journalist, Report Writer and Book Doctor
From tweets and blogs to white papers and books --
You provide the information; I craft the words.

[Kerry Lannert]

That was the gist of my response to the B&N rep who gave me the "B&N and
Fictionwise only" line. I still haven't heard back from her, but I'll
follow up when I get a response. I'm very much hoping it's a mistake or
a misunderstanding.

[Bert Latamore]

Kerry,

It clearly says on the presentation that the new machine reads eReader format. Of course eReader now provides its books in several formats -- something I discovered when I bought my last book -- but having to redownload 80-odd books to do a format change would be annoying (downloading 300-odd, the size of my e-library, would be impossible).

Maybe they just haven't gotten the eReader books working yet, or maybe the person you are talking to is giving you bad information. Let's hope.

Bert

[Bert Latamore]

Yesterday I found out something else interesting about the Nook. You can read a book on multiple devices. You can only have it open on one device at a time, but for instance you can read a book on the Nook at home in the evening and then the next morning read more of it on your smart phone or portable ocmputer while riding the train to work.

That seems at first glance to be a "best of both worlds" scenario. However, I wonder what happens to bookmarks, highlighted sections, and notes that you make in the book. Do they stay on the device that you were using when you made them, or does the service capture them in the Cloud so that they are available on other devices. I don't know. One of my clients, however, may be getting a Nook to review. I don't know if I can get to try it out, but if I do I will report what I find.

All the best,

Bert

[Kerry Lannert]

On that note, I did finally get a more complete answer from B&N. The administrator of their message boards posted that non-B&N-purchased eReader-formatted books will be readable on the device but aren't "fully compatible" with the device. This means that sideloaded content can't be loaned or synced to other devices. Only books on your B&N bookshelf will do those things. 

You can, however, read those books and take notes, etc. so that's really the most important thing to me. I'm a little sad they won't sync to my iPhone, for when I forget my nook at home, but it's a small price to pay for having them be compatible at all.

Also, I've seen several other complaints now of people getting bad information about the device from B&N's customer support people, methinks some more training is in order. One person asked if he could use the keyboard to lookup a word in a book and was given an unequivocal "no." That the only search available is the dictionary search. This, however, is not true.

- Kerry

[Marsha]

According to B&N, bookmarks and notes are synced between devices.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/compare/

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/nook/features/

Personally, I'm waiting to see one in person before deciding if it should be on my want list. I have to admit, I have never seen any e-ink screen in person. I once saw a Kindle while boarding a plane, but have not experienced its use. I think the flash between pages might bother me, but that has not been tested.

The Nook has caught my interest, because I already have thousands of books (not an exaggeration) in the eReader format. Any dedicated reading device I consider has to be able to handle that format.

---

From: Bert Latamore <bert.l...@gmail.com>
To: wo...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Fri, October 23, 2009 7:23:13 AM
Subject: [woyp] Re: Nook and ereader.com NOT compatible?

[Bert Latamore]

Marsha,

Thousands of books! Wow! I am impressed. I have a little over 300, and I have been buying books from eReader since it was Peanut Press. How do you have time to read that much? Can you see the envy in that sentence? I have only read about half of the eReader books I own, and I have been making a real effort to catch up for the last few months, but it will take a year or more for me to do that.

If I can get this review loaner Nook from my client one of the first things I intend to do is put one of my eReader books on it and see how it works on the Nook. I also am a little confused by Kerry's report -- what do they mean by eReader format books that didn't come from B&N. Since B&N owns eReader I would expect that anything I bought from eReader would be consider now as purchased from B&N. Of course you can reformat PDF books into eReader using the software that eReader sells. I have done that once or twice. Perhaps they mean those?

Anyway, all the best and many days of happy reading!

Bert

[Kerry Lannert]

Unfortunately B&N hasn't merged their accounts with Fictionwise and
eReader, so even though they are all B&N companies the nook will only
support syncing to a B&N account, not Fictionwise or eReader ones.
Hopefully they'll merge them at some point down the road, but for now
content from those sites needs to be sideloaded to the device by USB
and won't sync to the cloud like books from B&N's site will.

- Kerry

On Oct 23, 2009, at 08:16 , Bert Latamore wrote:

> Marsha,
>
> Thousands of books! Wow! I am impressed. I have a little over 300,
> and I have been buying books from eReader since it was Peanut Press.
> How do you have time to read that much? Can you see the envy in that
> sentence? I have only read about half of the eReader books I own,
> and I have been making a real effort to catch up for the last few
> months, but it will take a year or more for me to do that.
>
> If I can get this review loaner Nook from my client one of the first
> things I intend to do is put one of my eReader books on it and see
> how it works on the Nook. I also am a little confused by Kerry's
> report -- what do they mean by eReader format books that didn't come
> from B&N. Since B&N owns eReader I would expect that anything I
> bought from eReader would be consider now as purchased from B&N. Of
> course you can reformat PDF books into eReader using the software
> that eReader sells. I have done that once or twice. Perhaps they
> mean those?
>

> Anyway, all the best and many days of happy reading!/woyp?hl=en
> -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
>

[Bert Latamore]

Boy, talk about missing the boat here. This means that a lot of established customers of Fictionwise and eReader will be much less attracted to the Nook. I can download books from eReader directly to an iPhone or iPod Touch, to my UX, and to several other handheld smartphones and PDAs, but not to the Nook. Which also means that it won't merge notes on an eReader book that I am reading on the Nook and some other device either, I suppose. That is a big negative. I am certainly not walking away from the investment I have in those 300+ books I have already bought from eReader. And I am likely to buy more. For instance, the other day I was listening to Terry Gross interviewing journalist David Hoffman about his new book on the nuclear arms race from the 1980s on from the Russian viewpoint based on a lot of documents released since the fall of the USSR. The book is "Dead Hand, The untold store of the Cold Ware arms race and its dangerous legacy" and sounds very interesting. So the first thing I did was check eReader, and yes, they have it.

One thing that has really improved with the B&N acquisition of Fictionwise/eReader is the book selection. I believe that may be due to B&N although I don't know for sure, of course. But what I want is a single unified reader that will let me read books in any of their formats and manage my e-book library as a single unified database. And I would really like some upgrades to the book management functions of the present software as well, although that is improving gradually. Perhaps the Nook will provide that at some future date, at which time I would be more interested in it.

Bert

[Bert Latamore]

BTW, There is a rumor that the nook will run Android applications, which would imply things like Gmail and Google maps among other items. Interesting possibility. Could the nook be an Android device?

Bert

[Ryan Waldon]

The Nook does use the Android operating system...

--ryan

[Bert Latamore]

That's very interesting. It certainly shows the technical strength of Android, which certainly wasn't designed with ebook readers in mind.