Since I have had my Kobo I haven’t borrowed any ebooks from the library. This evening I decided I would borrow an ebook. With my Kindle it was easy, downloads went through Amazon’s website and I never had any problems. Kobo is different, it requires all kinds of hoop jumping. I was in no mood to jump but spent forty-five minutes at it without any success.
I downloaded Overdrive and it froze my computer. But I don’t think that is what I needed. It seems I needed Adobe Digital Editions. So I downloaded that but I couldn’t get it to work because it refused to allow me to authorize it to run on my computer. Maybe because I didn’t get a special library ID for it? I have no idea. The digital borrowing instructions are terrible and fragmented and my patience was gone so I gave up.
Now I am all kinds of grumpy because I was going to read my first Jo Walton book and was really looking forward to starting it in the morning on my train ride to work. Now I won’t be. It is not my library’s fault. It is the fault of publishers for requiring so much DRM crap because they are so paranoid I might steal their books. Well you know what publishers? If I want to I could go to a file sharing website and download the book and have it on my Kobo faster and easier than your paranoid library borrowing restrictions allow.
When I am prepared to spend time figuring out the library borrowing I will. Until then I went to Project Gutenberg and downloaded a few books. All of them I want to read, but not sure I want to read them now. My fiction reading slump is still in progress. Jo Walton was going to fix it. Grr.
I will come back tomorrow and I promise I won’t be grumpy then!
Don’t blame you for being grumpy at all! The first time I used overdrive (I use it on the iPad), I had so many issues. I’m sure it was user error but still. Now I mainly use it when I download an eBook to my phone and luckily it’s been easy. I hope whatever book you choose to read ends up helping you out of your fiction reading slump!
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Iliana, seems like I am in good company when it comes to trying to get Overdrive to work! I have a bit of reprieve for a day since the book I was almost done reading has turned out to be longer than I expected!
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Ugh to all of the DRMs. I bought a few e-books through Deep Vellum, a new independent publisher, the other day and got a lovely message from them saying ‘do feel free to share them when you’re done’. It struck me that this is as it should be – I won’t feel like a criminal if I send the file to a friend when I’m finished reading, just like I might do with a paper book, and they will get more business as I introduce new readers to their work.
Much better than treating us all as if we’re out to steal books which, as you say, are probably freely available on the internet if we wanted to be pirates!
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Audrey, oh how good it is to hear about a publisher that does it right! I had not heard of them so I went and looked them up and they seem wonderful. I will definitely keep them in mind for future reading choices!
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Completely understand your pain! I went though the loops when trying to get some books from Open Library and make it compatible with Indian software…you think the concept of Open Library would mean easy access across the world…think again!! I finally gave up!! Hope you have a better Tuesday!
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cirtnecce, oh ugh, what a pain for you! One would think that Open Library meant easy access! Too bad it didn’t. Maybe a second try in the future will bring you success?
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I’ve never been able to figure out overdrive. Every ebook I’ve ever checked out has just wasted time on my reader and not gotten read because I can’t figure out how to access it.
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Anakalian Whims, I feel relieved and saddened to hear that. I imagine there are quite a few people who have had the same experience as you have.
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Ugh to DRMs and to library borrowing being fraught with so many technical difficulties! Who needs that? I go about this in a lot of ways…I have even just had friends lend me their entire Kindle to read a book they had on it. I need to set this up with my current library–I haven’t tried yet because I am afraid of having to deal with exactly that kind of bullshit. Hope you figure it out painlessly soon!
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Nikki, I’ve been avoiding the whole ebook borrowing thing since I got my Kobo too since I knew it would require a few extra steps than the Kindle. But I didn’t think it would be such an ordeal. It’s incredibly stupid.
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You’re not the only one to have problems with Overdrive when borrowing stuff from the library, though somehow the Americans seem to find it easier.
Meanwhile I hate DRM too – I get quite a few books from Netgalley, and dread it if any book is DRMd (they dont make it clear when asking for it). I’ve had conversations elsewhere where small/new authors claim it’s the only protection they have with people not stealing their work; they believe it offsets the point of many book bloggers is that the majority of them want to read a new piece and talk about it – usually positively – giving them free publicity, and that slapping DRM on it shows a distinct lack of trust.
I have too many other books to read than worry about DRM books
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Nordie, I’ve heard stories but I thought, really how hard could it be? Well I found out!
I had thought of searching NewGalley for something to read instead but by the time I gave up on the library I was so frustrated I just wanted to be done and not think about it anymore. I understand concerns about pirating but DRM or not, probably just about any popular book is going to be pirated. For publishers to put such crazy DRM on legit books is like punishing the people who want to do the right thing.
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meanwhile I’ve had some great experiences with some great publishers (both ebook and paperbook – make em send the latter via post, teeheee!). Over all the positives have out weighed the negatives.
Hopefully publishers/authors will learn to trust bloggers (as much as anyone else can be trusted!)
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I hope so Nordie! I do always want to do right by authors and publishers but sometimes they make it so much harder than it needs to be. We aren’t the enemy! 🙂
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Oh dear, how frustrating! I didn’t even know we could borrow ebooks to be honest…That shows how informed I am on the subject haha. I usually only by my ebooks on my Kindle when they are cheapy cheap on offer otherwise I find it really a rip off because there isn’t the price of the paper, nor the printing ect
And you are right if you wanted to, easy to download them illegally so why complicating the matter?
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Catherine, very frustrating but it seems I am in good company. Libraries have been lending ebooks for a while now but they don’t exactly make it easy!
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The whole concept of ebook borrowing is totally foreign to me, here libraries are still very wary of ebooks and copyright issues. They end up lending you the ebook reader full of books, which is… well… weird to me. Perhaps they just aim at traditional readers who want to try the new technology. Good luck with your experiment!
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smithereens, French libraries don’t offer ebook borrowing? Back when ebooks and ereaders were brand new libraries in the US had some Kindles that they would lend out with books on them but now we are up to three different ebook lending systems that allow readers to borrow directly and download ebooks to their own personal reader. The process doesn’t always go smoothly! Hopefully France will catch up soon on ebook lending!
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Some of my library’s ebooks are specially formatted for Kindle, for Overdrive, and for EPUB ebooks. I confess, I have only ever downloaded an ebook from the library through my NOOK, twice, and Overdrive didn’t give me too much trouble. I don’t use ebooks very often, though, and when I do I use my iPhone now. Anyway, I’m going to attach a link to my library’s website, frequently asked questions about e-readers other than Kindle. It might be of some help: http://www.knoxlib.org/sites/default/files/overdrive_with_ade.pdf
I hope you get it figured out soon! That’s terribly frustrating!
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Laila, you are so awesome! Thank you for that PDF link it is so much clearer than my library’s instructions! I haven’t gone back to try and get it all to work yet, I’m saving it for the weekend when I have a little more time.
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You’re welcome! Even though it’s a different library system, I hoped it would help.
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I’ve not had any problems with Overdrive and use it quite regularly to borrow books from my library system. I guess I should mention that I have used it on my Mac, iPads, and Kindles without any issues…but it was a bit tough to get it all set up and running correctly.
I’ve had problems with using Bluefire Reader on my kindles (talk about jumping through hoops to get Kindle to even allow the software to be placed on a Kindle) but have finally gotten that one working pretty well. It’s important to me mainly for the free University of Chicago upload I get just about every month because those won’t work with Overdrive.
I hate, absolutely hate, all the restrictions publishers place on e-books…and don’t get me started about having to pay $13 for a single e-book like I had to do yesterday for a book from Soho. I wanted that book because I plan to review the fourth book in a Soho series and didn’t have a copy of the third book…and couldn’t find one anywhere around here.
Publishers really do need to get this mess figured out and standardized. I think we are all tired of doing it for them.
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Sam, I’ve not had any trouble with Bluefire Reader but then I only ever use it on my iPad and have never tried to install it on a Kindle or other device. I only use it for those free U of Chicago books too! I’m starting to get quite a collection. I should probably read one of them soon!
I think Amazon very early did us a disservice by pricing ebooks so cheaply. No, there is no paper or distribution costs, but everything else associated with producing a book is still the same and the book has to live on a server somewhere and that has costs. Digital books should definitely not cost as much as a hardcover but under $10 for a brand new book is not completely realistic either. Unfortunately, publishers are not very good at explaining how much it costs to produce a book.
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Adobe Digital Editions is the worst program in the world. It’s just awful. It has never stopped being awful all the (two? three?) years I’ve been using it. The good news is, once you get it set up to work with your e-reader (which can be such a huge nuisance to do), it gets better. Ish. It still crashes every third time I try to return a library book from it. I am just used to it by now.
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Jenny, I am so relieved I am not alone in my ebook borrowing difficulties. I’m glad to know once the set up is done it kind of gets better. That is so sad that “kind of better” is a happy prospect. Ugh
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Good luck getting things to work! I had to get Adobe Digital Editions to borrow e-books and put them on my Nook. It’s a process to download the right file and then sideload the book onto the reading device. (Now, I have a Kindle, and it’s a much easier process!)
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Thanks Jennifer! The Kindle is so much easier, isn’t it? I have a Kobo now because I killed two Kindles in one year, or rather, they died on me for no reason I can understand so I figured it was a sign I needed a different brand of ereader 🙂
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How frustrating and ridiculous! It will only encourage piracy and in the end we’d have to say it serves them right. Grr indeed!
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litlove, you’ve got it exactly!
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