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Each of the major e-book distributors has free reading apps which tie in their e-bookstore into your device. Here are links to some of the most popular
One of the advantages of the e-reader device is that the reader can change the font size or font type at will. When this happens, the device must automatically re-calculate the position of page breaks in the material being presented. Not only that, but the reader software needs to re-calculate where the end of each line is, and how to break each line, such as whether or not a hyphenated word is allowed. This means that it isn't possible to know at any one time how many pages are in an e-book. Many distributors, such as Amazon, provide an approximate page count which is based on a word count estimate multiplied by a word per page factor. In our description, we will provide the original book page count where applicable.
There is a known issue with the Nook reader in terms of how pagination occurs in documents containing fairly large illustrations. The Nook does not adjust spacing in the document prior to the occurance of a large image or table or other contiguous structure, and so these white spaces occur normally. We make a best effort at minimizing this issue.
We have seen that there are several readers which do a poor job on determining what is the current page count. Most e-books do not contain an internal page map, and in fact many distributors prohibit them. Consequently, the reader software is making an estimate of the corresponding page in a paper document, and as we described above, this bears little resemblance to the count of displayed pages.
There is a known issue with the Color Nook firmware at 1.4.3 (as of this writing) and earlier with regards to the Nook's ability to page past large illustrations, particularly paging backwards. The device can get stuck and not page backwards. This is caused by the epub file containing a fixed height image which is taller than the Nook display size. When the Nook calculates the new page location, it determines that there is still some image to show and repeats the image display. We test for this condition and ensure that our books are free from it, and look forward to a firmware update to the Nooks to fix this problem. The epub files which have this symptom are completely valid per the epub standard.
We currently have a mix of DRM-protected and non-DRM protected e-books. DRM-protection acts as copy protection. DRM is applied by the distributor on our behalf, not by us, since the DRM software is controlled by the distributor. We have a considerable investment in reviving work in the public domain, and therefore our only protection on these assets is DRM. Work we own which we are the copyright holder for is legally, if not practically, protected by copyright, and we expect to be able to provide these without DRM. We feel it is important that readers are able to make their own copies, archives, and so forth without being tied to a particular distributor's DRM platform.
We plan to distribute through the iTunes store once economic conditions warrant doing so. Meanwhile, we encourage readers to download the free Kindle for iPad app in the App store here. Or simply search for "kindle" in the App store on your iPad. Once you have the kindle app, you can download the book from Amazon and read it on your device.
Amazon again is your best bet at this point as they provide Kindle apps for nearly all of these devices. The Kindle reader for Android devices is available as a free download from Google Play here. Furthermore, Amazon will sync your Kindle library across all your devices (they have to, actually, in order for features like the lending library and DRM to work properly). We don't currently distribute on Google Play.
For epub files used on the Nook and Kobo, we validate the file using the latest epub validation tools. We test Nook books on an actual Nook Color tablet and Kobo books on an e-ink Kobo device. Amazon provides full emulation for all Amazon devices, so we test using their emulation platform as well as on a physical e-ink Kindle. Amazon's emulator does include the iPad and iPhone, but not the Android devices yet. We check for proper formatting, pagination, links, tables of contents, and for ordinary spelling and typographical errors.
At the time of this writing, there are two separate Kindle formats in use, one, KF8, which is used for the Kindle Fire and incorporates most of the epub3 standard, and a predecessor version, which is based on the Mobi pocketbook standard. Kindle e-ink devices currently do not support KF8 and KF8 is needed to support text inlined with images.
© 2012 Mondello Publishing