Ebook Devices and Applications

What is an ebook?

The ebooks that you'll find on our site will either be EPUBs, PDFs or Kindle (mobi) ebooks. EPUB and PDF formats in particular have been widely adopted by publishers and the makers of many ebook readers, and should be readable on most modern ebook reading devices and applications. If, however, you own an Amazon Kindle, then you'll be able to use the Kindle Mobi version that we make available for most titles on this site.

How can you read an ebook?

When it comes to reading an ebook, you have a wide range of options ranging from reading on your personal computer, on a dedicated ebook reading device, smartphone, or using devices such as the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Building a library of ebooks

You might like to maintain a library of your ebooks on your personal computer, and transfer them to a particular reading device when desired.

In this case, we'd suggest either using freely-available software such as Calibre or Adobe's Digital Editions to maintain your library on your personal computer, which will allow you to store, arrange, convert and transfer your ebooks as needed. The Calibre site has a nice video and demo, which provides plenty of useful information.

Reading an ebook on a portable device

Popular devices for reading ebooks tend to either be devices dedicated to ebook reading such as the eInk devices like the Kobo range. Tablet devices, which can be used for a wide range of uses besides ebook reading, include the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, and an ever-increasing number of Android-based tablets and smartphones.

There are many free applications available for reading ebooks on these devices, and some popular suggestions include:

As well as versatile devices such as those made by Apple, dedicated ebook readers are available and are still popular with book lovers, mainly because they have some attractive features:

  • They often use technologies such as eInk, which means power consumption is low and that they can be used for a number of weeks before needing recharging.
  • They are often book-sized, and comfortable to view and handle
  • They allow you to carry a library of books around, allowing you to choose what you want to read and when at your convenience

Dedicated eInk readers have undergone a period of consolidation in the last few years, and two of the biggest and most-popular ranges of eInk readers are those marketed by Kobo, and the Amazon Kindle range.

For more information, sites such ad toptenreviews.com (US-based) can help in finding device that suits your needs and budget.

In general, if a device supports the EPUB, Kindle or PDF standards (as most modern ebook readers do), you should be able to use ebooks purchased from our site on the device.

Reading an ebook on a computer

We mentioned Calibre and Adobe's Digital Editions above, both of which as well as providing a means of organising your ebooks on your PC or Mac, also come with a built-in ebook reader.

However, there's plenty of other options for reading ebooks on your computer, including:

Which is the right format of ebook for my device?

EPUB

For most modern ebook reading devices (including the Amazon Kindle when using the Send to Kindle email service), the EPUB format is almost always the best format to use for reading ebooks.

Particular devices (amongst others) that support the EPUB format include:

There are a number of EPUB reading applications that are freely available, including Adobe Digital Editions, which is available for most types of devices.

Amazon Kindle

For Amazon Kindle devices and Kindle Apps, you can make use of Amazon's Send to Kindle by Email service to upload an EPUB file to your Kindle device or application.

Kindle apps can be freely downloaded from Amazon for most types of devices.

The process of loading a Mobi file to your Kindle device or application is called sideloading, and can be carried out using the process described here. Note that Amazon is reducing support for Mobi files as they are now moving to make more use of the EPUB format, and sideloading Mobi files may eventually only work for older Kindle apps and devices.

PDF

As an alternative to EPUB, publishers will sometimes make their titles available in the PDF format. This typically occurs if:

  • The book features complex formatting, where the fidelity of layout is important
  • The book features sensitive information, such as legal documents
  • The publisher does not have the capability to produce EPUB (PDF is an easier format for most publishers to generate)

Buying ebooks

Find your ebook

Search or browse this site to find the title that you are interested in reading and add it to the shopping cart &8212; Be sure to choose the correct format before adding it to the shopping cart.

Download your ebook

Once you have made your selections, proceed to the checkout and purchase your books. If you're new to our site, you'll be prompted to create an account, which is necessary to ensure that you have a secure location to store and download your purchases, and so we can let you know in future about special offers and new releases (if you want us to).

Once you've completed the checkout process, you'll be able to download your new purchases from your account download area.

In future, you'll be able to login to your account and again download any purchases you have made, which means you'll always have online access to your ebooks.

Read your ebook

Once downloaded, you'll be able to read your ebook using your preferred device or reading application.

With the increasing popularity of ebooks, there are an increasing number of hardware devices (and web-based services) available for reading ebooks.

If you'd like to find out more about the reading options, please have a look at the section above.

Making reading ebooks easy

We believe that ebook reading should be as simple as possible, and that's why we've taken a different approach to many of the other ebooks vendors out there.

  • We make our ebooks available without any Digital Rights Management software (DRM). Although necessary in certain situations, DRM restricts the ways you can read your ebook, and can cause complications when moving them from one reading device to another as you upgrade.
  • We work with local publishers to make their titles available as ebooks. Although other vendors sell ebooks into New Zealand, many of their offerings are based on the catalogues of overseas publishers.
  • Through our experience in digitisation and publishing in New Zealand, we believe we have a good understanding of many of the issues, as well as being keen on Kiwi literature!
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