Recently I have bought a new e-reader, the Kobo Aura HD. I’m very happy with it. My previous reading device was a 7.7" Android tablet (Samsung Galaxy 7.7), which is, by itself, an excellent device, but where it fails (just like all other tablets), is when it comes to reading outside in the sunlight. It can not cope with the external light, the glare and reflection of the screen, and does not deliver enough contrast.
So enters the e-paper e-reader..
Having such a new toy also made me start reading again on a higher pace, so I continued with the “A Song of Ice And Fire” series. I have the bundle with the 4 books which I bought through Amazon. Of course, that (like most of their books), came with DRM installed.
After a little hassle to have the DRM stripped, so I could import the book into Calibre, which runs on my Linux PC, it reads perfectly on my new device. But that raised me the following question for my future reading:
What e-book shop offers A Dance of Dragons DRM-free?
Both the Kobo webshop and Amazon have Adobe DRM, which is an extra hassle to import in Calibre.
Shops without DRM have my preference. Shops that “Do it well"TM are O’Reilly and InformIT which offer DRM-free books. O’Reilly even pushes them automatically to Kindle and Google Drive, and both offer plain downloads from their website in various formats (Kindle, PDF, EPUB, .. ).
That’s how it should be, let the consumer choose his reading device. Walled gardens are inconvenient. The music industry has realized that as well. Next should be book and movie/series publishers.
In short. I prefer e-book shops that make my lazy life easier. Get to work, and you have an extra customer.