A question for my interest: Did you know you don't need a Kindle to buy/read Kindle books?

[glendalough]

You can actually get Kindle ebooks on your Ipad or just a regular computer.

Did you know that? Did you not?

I'd like to get an idea of how many folks didn't know that....how common knowledge it is that you don't need the actual KINDLE .

[alleycat]

I think we had a thread about this some time ago.

I've had Kindle for PC for a couple of years.

[veinglory]

Yes

[thothguard51]

Yep...

Got it on my laptop and desk top. I download a book or article once to either computer and it's in my kindle account. I have downloaded lots of free books, but have only bought a few as this is not my favorite form of reading...yet. Still more of an experiment for me.

[Library4Science]

One thing to watch out for if you are planning on self-publishing for the Kindle is that the KindleForPC doesn't always display a book the same as the physical Kindle does. I had a lot of trouble getting equations (images) to display in the Kindle; they looked fine in an HTML page and on the KindleForPC. On the physical Kindle they often had the background colored black so you couldn't see the equation at all. It appears that Kindle has a problem with the transparency channel in some images.

[nkkingston]

I'm aware of that, but since the UK doesn't even have a Kindle store yet (coming later this month) I haven't really bothered. A lot of books in the US Kindle store aren't available to UK customers (look, but don't touch!) which means I've just never bothered at all.

[KTC]

Yep. I knew it. Same with Kobo and most others. There are PC and cellphone applications that allow people to read ebooks. I thought everybody knew this?

[Amadan]

Let me know when I can read Kindle books on my Sony (without having to do a bunch of file hacking/conversion).

[Shadow_Ferret]

Yes, I knew it. I have Kindle for PC and Barnes & Noble Reader (don't need a Nook). I have a several free books on my PC, but I still prefer real books.

[glendalough]

Amadan, You mean the sony Ereader won't let you use the kindle app?

[Amadan]

Amadan, You mean the sony Ereader won't let you use the kindle app?

Amazon uses its own proprietary ebook format. I'm sure there's a way to convert azw files to epub (which may or may not be legal), but it's not trivial.

[BenPanced]

I don't know about Amazon (I don't buy anything from them, so I don't know how their site is laid out) but Barnes & Noble has a big honking ad on their front page advertising their nook app for various outlets. Kinda hard to miss it. I'd imagine the same for Amazon; they're fools if they aren't drawing attention to it.

[TheMindKiller]

Kindle on my iPhone saved me during an 8 month deployment with the Navy. I'm thinking about buying the real Kindle now though just cause it's purty.

[kuwisdelu]

Yes.

Amazon uses its own proprietary ebook format. I'm sure there's a way to convert azw files to epub (which may or may not be legal), but it's not trivial.

And that's why I don't read Kindle books on my computer or iPod.

But I do have Stanza for my iPod and B&N's eReader desktop app.

[Library4Science]

Calibre will convert mobi and azw formats to epub and serveral other formats. I don't know how well the converted files will display, as I only have a Kindle, and I don't know if it will handle DRMd files.