Nook Boards

I made up a quick tutorial about how to convert files for the nook in Calibre. It also explains how to send the files to your nook once they are converted. Remember, only non-DRM’d files can be converted. If I have a file in a format the nook won’t read natively, I will generally convert it to ePub. You can also use Calibre to keep track of all your books that are already in a nook compatible format, and then use the program to easily send them to your nook.

This is a picture tutorial, so I will let me screen shots do the talking, but feel free to leave comments with any questions!

For additional help with Calibre, feel free to visit our forums.

Cheers!
Rachel

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If you do not know about the Oberon covers for the nook, you are missing out. Oberon Design is small company located in Santa Rosa, CA. All their leather products are hand crafted right in their shop. I first heard about Oberon when I got my Kindle. I never bought one for the Kindle, but I lusted over it for some time. While the covers are not inexpensive, the quality they bring is well worth the cost. When I got my nook, I knew I must have one. So for my birthday, my hubby ordered me just the one I wanted, Dragonfly Pond.

My cover arrived today. It was shipped in a priority box, and when I pulled it out, it was wrapped in a very simple, yet very pretty, brown paper. A free charm was also included.

The brown paper unwrapped …

to reveal a beautiful leather cover.

Inside the cover, was an “Owner Manual” …

Leather care instructions …

And some information on the company with extra elastics in case one breaks.

The interior has a pocket and a wool strip to protect the screen on one side. On the other side it has straps to hold the nook in. (The inside is black, even though this picture looks more brown.)

There are plastic inserts in each pocket, which help with stability, though you could take them out easily if you wanted to.

The design I chose doesn’t go across the whole cover, but the back is still nice looking.

The design on the front has great texture.

The nook fits perfectly inside.

And even has a nice profile when shut.

The cover folds back nicely without any cracking.

The straps do not cover any of the holes at the bottom.

Now for something fun.

If you are careful, you can open up one of the pockets and see where the metal ends are for the strap that wraps around the button to keep the cover clsoed.

If you poke one of the metal ends up (put your hand in the pocket, and carefully guide it up).

The strap will come off and you can add your charm to it.

Carefully poke the metal piece back down, and now you have an easier way to get the elastic off the button when opening your cover.

I love my new cover, it’s exactly what I needed for my nook. Be sure to check out all the other styles people are buying over at the boards.

Here are just two of the designs other members have gotten:

Cheers!
Rachel

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Recently Tamela Rich Tweeted (Twittered?) sent me a link to her blog post of the day. Within the blog post, she had a quote from someone about nook vs. Kindle. That’s the million dollar questions these days isn’t it? Walk into any Barnes & Noble and you will hear customers ask, “But how is it better than the Kindle?” And how is it? Let me tell you about why I chose to buy a nook.

Let me first qualify my post here with some background on my eReader journey. In April of 2009 I bought a Kindle 2. I was aware of the Kindle before that, and knew that I would have one eventually, but wanted to wait and see where it was going before I jumped in. When the Kindle 2 was released, I knew that it was must have for me. Buying the Kindle 2 changed my reading habits entirely. When I was in high school I read voraciously, but as I got older and life started to take over, my reading sharply declined. I never was the type of person who could carry around a light read to enjoy anywhere. Short books are not my thing. I need my 800 to 1,000 page tomes to keep me satisfied for some time. Lugging one of those around just is not an option for me. Now, you can probably see where I am going with this. The Kindle provided me with a way to, not only carry around the current 800 page book I was reading, but to also carry around several more as back-up. In fact I could carry the whole Amazon store with me, all in a package the size of a small paperback. I started reading more than I had in the last 5 years in a matter of months.

So as you can guess by the fact that I run a nook blog and forum, I now own the nook. Why? Why did I feel the need to purchase another eReader device when I was already so satisfied with the Kindle? That is not an easy question to answer, there were many factors involved in the decision. I could say I liked the look better, I liked the android base and the possibilities it provides, or I liked that I could use my nook in Barnes & Noble stores for special offers and reading. But those are only part of the story (and probably ones you’ve heard many times). When I sat down to write this post, I really stopped to think about why I am sticking with the nook, and truly there was one answer that kept popping to the forefront. Options.

Truth be told, once I sit down to read a book, let’s say The Lost Symbol, it makes no difference whatsoever if I am reading that book on my Kindle or my nook. The eInk screen is made by the same manufacturer, so the actual reading experience is exactly the same on both devices. The real difference for me is where I bought the book, and this is where my answer lies as to why I think, in the long run, nook may be a better choice over the Kindle.

If I want to read a public domain book, Sherlock Holmes maybe, I can pick that up anywhere and everywhere, mostly for free. I can buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, I can get it from Feedbooks.com or the Gutenberg Project. If I download the book from a site like Feedbooks, I can use the same exact file (with only a conversion for file type using Calibre) on either my nook or my Kindle. These books are DRM free and so long as I convert them to the file type that each devices uses, I am good to go. But what if I want to read a new release? What about that book I was reading earlier, The Lost Symbol? What are my options then?

This is where the nook takes a step forward in my opinion. If I want to read The Lost Symbol (legally) on my Kindle, I have to buy it from Amazon. Currently Amazon has this book for sale at $9.60. Not a bad price, but it’s the only option I have. Once I buy this book from Amazon, I can only read this book on the Kindle (or a Kindle enabled device). Actually, I can only read this book on the Kindle (or other device) that is associated with my Amazon account. That’s it. And Amazon has made it clear, that’s all they plan on allowing for some time to come.

But let’s now take a look at how I could get that same book on my nook. Of course I could buy the book from Barnes & Noble for $9.60. Same price, so that’s good. But for my nook, I could also buy The Lost Symbol from Kobo books, their books are DRM’d with Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) which is readable on the nook. Their price is currently $9.99, but they have a 20% coupon this month so I could get it for $8. Now there’s a deal. Another place I could pick up the book is at the Sony eBook store. The Sony store recently changed most of their files to ePub DRM’d with ADE, so they too will work on the nook. The Sony store has this book priced at $9.99. Let’s see, you also have Fictionwise.com to choose from, they are a B&N affiliate so all their books will work on the nook. They have the book for $20.00, but you get a 100% micropay rebate on the book. This means you have $20 in your account there that can be used to buy another book. That could be leveraged pretty well I think. Then there is eReader.com, another B&N affiliate. They have the same price and deal as Fictionwise. Oh and let’s not forget, if my local library participates, I can download The Lost Symbol from Overdrive and borrow it for free for 21 days. How’s that for options?

And the funny thing is, that’s not even all of them! I am sure if I were to take the time to look around the web, I could find many more websites that use the ADE DRM and are able to sell me new releases for a reasonable price, all of which would work on my nook. On top of that, if I buy my books from these other sites, they will not only work on my nook, but on any device that can read the ADE DRM, which is a lot of them right now, except the Kindle. As well, ADE will soon be releasing an update to their program which will allow my books from B&N to be read using their software. That means even if I buy a book at B&N, I could read it on another device that has this new ADE software installed, not just the nook.

So yes, I like the look of my nook, yes I like that it is android based, yes I like the in store features it provides. But what I like the most is having options of where I can buy my new releases. If I only had my Kindle I’d have to pay $9.60 for The Lost Symbol. But with my nook, I could pay $8 to own it or I could borrow it for free from my library. Those are the kind of options I want to have, and that is why I personally chose to buy the nook.

Happy Reading!
Rachel

Photo by [n] from Flickr

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We got into a great conversation on the message boards about buying books directly on the nook versus buying them online from their website. The general consensus seemed to be that it is easier to buy the books online and then download them to the nook. I have to agree with that. Especially if you aren’t looking for one particular book, the website is so much easier to browse around. Of course being able to buy on the nook is nice if you don’t have access to a computer, but if you do have access, I would highly suggest buying on the computer rather than the nook.

It was asked exactly how the books get from the computer to the nook when bought this way, so I typed up some instructions for buying eBooks online, and I thought I would share them here. For those of you who are familiar with buying books online (maybe a little too familiar ) please ignore this post. But for those of you who are not accustomed to buying online, I hope this post can be of some help to you!

1. Go to www.bn.com (just click the linky link there)

2. Click on the eBook heading in the brown bar

3. In the search bar type the title of the book you are looking for (you’ll notice to the right of the search bar it says eBooks, this means you’re only searching in eBooks)

4. Click the green GO button

5. Now you will see a list with (hopefully) the book you’re looking for at the top. If your book is not available in eBook format, then it won’t show up in the list. As well the little blue “digital” sign under the title tells you it’s in eBook format.

5. If you now want to buy this book, you can just click the “Buy Now” button that shows up next to the book in the list. Your credit card will be charged at that time. You do not need to do anything else on the computer at this point.

6. Now to get the book on your nook, if you are in an area where AT&T cell phone service works, turn Airplane mode off and go to My Library. If you are in the coverflow mode, be sure to x out of that. Then click on “Check for new B&N content” You may need to click on “View my B&N library” first. It should now say it’s looking for new content and the book will show up automatically.

7. If you are not in an area where AT&T cell phone service works, then you will need to connect to your home wi-fi network, then go to My Library and if you are in the coverflow mode, be sure to x out of that. Then click on “Check for new B&N content” You may need to click on “View my B&N library” first. It should now say it’s looking for new content and the book will show up automatically.

And that’s it! Now you should have all your books on your nook, ready to read!

Cheers!
Rachel

Photo by bass_nroll from Flickr

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