Reading through PC Magazine’s Top 100 sites “you didn’t know and couldn’t live without” from the April 26, 2005 issue and I came across the site: Manybooks.net This site has 10,000+ free PDA eBooks.

Being pretty much a complete eBook newbie, I’ve been wanting to download a few eBooks onto my Tablet PC (and Pocket PC, too) and check them out someday. Not sure how eBooks would look on the tablet (digital magazines through Zinio look great, though) I tried downloading one just for kicks and opening with Microsoft Reader.

It appears the (default) eReader .pdb files from manybooks.net wouldn’t open so I downloaded the eReader program that the manybooks.net Help section recommended. That wouldn’t open the file either, it kept giving me error messages, so I chose the .DOC extension file and that one worked.

Still, I wanted to try using the Microsoft Reader program and contrast and compare. I should have stopped at that thought!

Upon further inspection the version of Microsoft Reader for Tablet PC on my M1400 was out of date, so I downloaded the most recent version. Uninstall old version first, install new version, activate, allow ActiveX. After all this, I still received the message: “Error: A book file may be missing or damaged.”

Wow, this much just to read a darn book? So I thought, ok, guess there is no way to open these files from manybooks.net (anybody else got any clues if there’s compatibility for this site?). Microsoft has their own reader area for eBooks which led me off to the online ebook store: fictionwise. Fictionwise has some free eBooks, but their main business is selling regular books. I registered for the site.

I found a dropdown with a number of format choices:

Adobe Acrobat (PDF) - we all know this format, which I personally do not care for
Microsoft Reader (LIT) - ahhh, so that’s the extension!
Palm DOC (PDB) - this would be the format that wasn’t working, no wonder
Rocket/REB1100 - ???
Franklin eBookMan (FUB)
hiebook (KML)
iSilo (PDB) - also the same extension as Palm DOC?
MobiPocket (PRC)
OEBFF Full VGA (IMP)
OEBFF Half VGA (IMP)

Clearly I have a lot to learn about eBooks and the different formats if I want to use with other devices. I’m assuming on my Palm VIIx I could use the Palm DOC and for the Pocket PC I would use … Microsoft Reader or MobiPocket?

I downloaed the free eBook in Microsoft Reader and was happy to see it automatically showed up in the Library. No need to save it to a directory. It was easy to read and it even had its own built-in text to speech reader, so that it could read to me. The voice sounded like Microsoft Mike, but I’m guessing that these voices could be changed. I have some AT & T Natural Voices that I purchased awhile back for another project that sound pretty good.

My wife loves to read, I have to show this to her and see what she thinks. She probably won’t like it because it’s not paper-based, but then maybe she would be interested (I wonder if she still wants a Tablet PC?). I looked at some of the prices of the books and they seemed about the same as paperbacks, perhaps a little less. I do like the idea of digital books if they could be backed up to CD because the shelf life of a computer is 12-18 months typically. I’m putting 24 - 36 months in as a timeframe for the Tablet PC because this was a more expensive machine ($2500 USD).

Hey Kara (she reads and sometimes even contributes to this blog) - here’s links to a few categories to check out: Horror, Romance

Cool, Fictionwise even has an affiliate program. Think I’ll utilyze that for another fiction-oriented weblog.

• Buying that first eBook: Cell by Stephen King
• 2,100+ free ebooks
• Excel-lent! All Microsoft Office new file formats will be XML
• HarperCollins experiments with ad-supported non-fiction book online
• No more Palm.net wireless service after Aug 31
• Trading books you’ve read for books you want to read