Best store for ebooks?

[Aimless]

So let's say I want to buy a textbook as an ebook. What would be my best source? Google books, the Kindle store, or the publisher's own store from where I can get the book as a PDF? Prices are pretty similar, I'm just wondering which option would be the most useful/practical/pleasant. A disadvantage of buying books as PDFs is of course that you get them with the original two-column layout with few good reformatting options until someone here codes a program that takes two-column PDFs and turns them into single-column ones.* The kindle version looks good but the pictures are small and non-zoomable. The google books version doesn't offer any real preview so I have no idea how the pics look. I get the feeling it's also two-column however.





* If anyone does code such a program, do let me know. I'll make sure you get much love from all over the world. The only such tool I've come across kinda sucks boules.

[Ominous Gamer]

we favor epub and kindle in the library, but I personally don't use them enough to comment on how they handle images, graphs and such. I'd also stay away from publisher stores because of DRM concerns. I've seen publishers switch formats, shops, and business plans far to often, and they all to commonly completely drop support for the previous model they were using.

[Aimless]

Even with purchased PDF:s? Hmm

[Ominous Gamer]

All depends on the system they use. Our pdfs go through Adobe Digital Editions and they are DRM protected to control the amount of sharing/printing/length of ownership (which is getting annoyingly popular with educational texts).

[wiggin]

I assume you're talking about medical textbooks; if so, have you checked to see if they're available for free from the NLM? The stuff they've got there is a very mixed bag, but it includes some surprisingly common titles - Alberts' Molecular Biology of the Cell, Berg's Biochemistry, Purves' Neuroscience, Lodish's Molecular Cell Biology, Gilbert's Developmental Biology, Varki's Glycobiology, etc.

Otherwise, I can't really help you - I've always preferred paper books for texts. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/

[CitizenCain]

Really depends on the publisher more than anything, and no one's yet to come along and drag them into the 21st century yet, like iTunes did with music.

Textbooks, in my experience, are especially awful, mainly because the publishers rely on squeezing out obscene margins for shit material, though more and more, they'll include a shitty e-version on CD (or vouchered download) while they're raping you on the price of a new textbook. If you can't find it on Google books or Amazon, though, that's probably because there's not an e-book version available for sale.

[Illusions]

A disadvantage of buying books as PDFs is of course that you get them with the original two-column layout with few good reformatting options until someone here codes a program that takes two-column PDFs and turns them into single-column ones.*

* If anyone does code such a program, do let me know. I'll make sure you get much love from all over the world. The only such tool I've come across kinda sucks boules.

Why are they still making certain types of e-books as .pdf's instead of compact, self-contained HTML 5 coded books? Because it seems this would be better suited to interactive books, and .pdf should be relegated to static content.

[Dreadnaught]

I'm a fan of Google eBooks because, in a world where the technology and licensing is in such flux, I have the most options with that platform. I can read on any Android device, iPhones/pods/pads, Sony ereaders, my Web browser or just about anything using Adobe Editions.

Granted, most of my reading is basic text (the kind of stuff we used to buy at bookstores).

[CitizenCain]

Why are they still making certain types of e-books as .pdf's instead of compact, self-contained HTML 5 coded books?

DRM.