Ebooks – What format should you get? Decide now!

The question of what format of e-book you get may seem trivial. But it can be a major pain in the butt if you pick the wrong format, so it’s worth thinking about it beforehand.

Even if you’ve already bought a few e-books, have a think about what format you should buy in the future.

You need something that works across all devices.

The number of devices and gadgets that can read e-books is staggering. Here’s a short list:

1. Amazon Kindle

2. Gemstar Rocket e-book reader

3. Sony e-book reader

4. Palm Pilot

5. Blackberry

6. Pepper Pad

7. Ectaco jetBook reader

8. MachSpeed Oasis Video Player

9. Smartphones

10. Cell phones

11. Laptop computers

12. Desktop computers

13. And even more you’ve probably never heard of….

One of the most frustrating things about many of these readers is that they are incompatible with each other. They have their own types of electronic files, which often can’t be read on your home computer or laptop, or other devices.

So choosing the right format becomes important, because what if your device goes “clunk” and they’re no longer making it? (Like the Rocket eBookman, which you can only pick up secondhand these days). You’re stuck with a lot of electronic books that you’ve paid good money for and can’t read.

Your safest bet is to choose one of the “common” formats – PDF, Palm OS (which is surprisingly portable), or text file. Not even the Microsoft Reader format is a safe bet across all devices.

PDF is perhaps the most versatile because you can read it on just about every device going, including the Amazon Kindle (which also runs its own proprietory format), PDAs and smartphones, and, of course, computers of all shapes and sizes.

But your device did go “clunk”…now what?

If you’re stuck with a huge number of books in a unique format, and no device that can read it, there’s a few steps you can take:

1) Contact the manufacturer of the device, and ask if they have conversion software. If they do, you can convert the files to a format that you can use (like PDF).

2) Check on-line to see if there’s a hacker’s conversion file available, like ABC AmberLit Converter, which converts Microsoft Reader files. Actually, Amber produce a whole slew of converters, for all sorts of format. Check them out here.)

So before you invest in a reading device, or even the books themselves, do your research.  Make sure the device you select can display one of the more common formats.  It’s worth the hassle.

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First appeared on Stories Rule, July 23, 2008

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Tracy Cooper-Posey © 2009. Cannot be copied or distributed without permission, or without this copyright notice attached.