Share/About the purchase and reading of eBooks.

Simply share about Blog Lai, Dumo, Amazon, Rakuten.

foreword

I have been reading e-books for about two years. Since the birth of smart phones, I have started to read novels that are not so easy to explain the source. The reader was originally a pregnant sister who helped me resolve my emotions, so I bought MooInk from ReadMoo. The reader, because of the launch of the traditional Chinese bookstore for Kindle, and the Thanksgiving sale, I bought a Paperwhite 4 gorgeously, which started my e-book hunting (?) journey across four platforms.

needs and preferences

When I didn’t know these platforms, I used the Dark Art of War and Apabi Reader (iOS App) to read books; I mainly read reference books and novels related to the body and mind; Europe, America and Japan were the main ones, and only Ono Fuyumei and Brandon were the only authors. ． Sanderson, Butterfly Seba and Huxuan are on my tracking list.

In terms of platform, my needs are very simple. Genuine books, mobile layouts, Chinese and English fonts, preferably with reading function, and PC, MAC and iOS apps are available; easy to purchase, electronic payment and credit cards are acceptable.

In terms of readers, aside from the necessary reading lights and wireless network functions, the main requirements are light weight and long battery life. The bonus items are folder management of books, a protective case, and a large number of imported books.

Conclusion first

My current preference is:

• MooInk reading reference book
• Paperwhite 4 Read novels and leisure books, articles, portable phone
• Kindle iOS App Listen to English Books (Audible)

The source for buying the book is:

• ReadMoo Buy Reference Books
• Kindle to buy English books and audiobooks
• Kobo buy Chinese books

Platform experience

blog to come

Blog to e-books is the first platform I came into contact with. Before I knew Dumo, I actually consumed it very frequently. There are about fifty books I have accumulated, most of which are language-related reference books. I also used blogs to fix it. Subscribe to the e-magazine.

For me, the biggest advantage of blogging is that it is very convenient to buy paper books and e-books. In the early days before the era of contention among a hundred schools of thought, e-books from blogs were put on the shelves very quickly . It must be put on the shelves together, and there is no need to wait for the first time to read, and the books are clearly classified . The logic is the same as that of physical books and Eslite physical bookstores. It is easy to find books to buy. And the blog came very early to support Line Pay for electronic payment, which is a big advantage for me who is used to using Line Pay for billing and payment.

In addition, several authors I followed in the early days all joined the blog to join the partner program. As long as they buy books through the referral link, the other party can get a share of the income. It is a very intuitive sponsorship method with no extra cost; Substantially, it is an ideal platform for students with little income.

Other advantages include the function of reading aloud. The reading from the blog is very standard, Miss Gugou. The Google Translation voice that everyone is familiar with is very easy to hear for me who is used to it. , you can listen to and absorb the book smoothly with a little distraction. In the early days, I mainly bought reference books. In order to speed up my own absorption, I was used to buying both electronic and physical books. I read the paper while listening to the book. It is very intuitive to make notes.

The downside of blogging to ebooks is deadly: the app and web bookcase interface is terrible and hard to use. The sorting of bookcases cannot be customized, and there is no folder and label function. It will be difficult to find books when there are too many books. It is very troublesome for people like me who can read a book two hundred times. Moreover, the file layout is uneven, there are fluid types (the line spacing font can be adjusted freely, etc.) and fixed-page types (common in comics, PDF type), reading on mobile phones is often a visual challenge, and the reading function memory only reaches pages , Suppose I read this page two lines short of today, and when I come back and press play, it will start from the top line of the page, which is really disturbing.

To sum up the above, I only lasted about half a year to buy e-books on my blog. Since I got to know MooInk, I have completely abandoned them. Now I only use them as a reference for "books I have bought". The app will be deleted.

Read Moo

It claims to be the largest Chinese e-book platform in Taiwan, which is well deserved in terms of my observation and reading tendency. I started researching the website first with the reader. At first, I broke the charging cable (I couldn’t find any Micro USB charging cable in my house, I am really ashamed to be a 3C house), so I didn’t use it right away, and I happily installed it. After I put it in the protective case and put it in my bag, I completely forgot about it. I am happy to buy books on the website every day. It has a healing effect similar to visiting the STEAM Thanksgiving sale. The login of the website can choose to bind Facebook and Google Suit, which is better than blogging!

In terms of advantages, just like Dumo's main Slogan, the Chinese books are very complete , ranging from "Chu Ci", "Zizhi Tongjian" to various president secretary goblin fights, danmei lilies blooming everywhere, magazines, business books, physical and mental growth, comics to waste collections (Hey), the classification is intuitive and clear , and the recommended book list will be updated slightly in about two weeks. Since most of the e-book reading groups are social people, the list is often "Atomic Habit" and "Human History". Such an idle book. The search function is convenient , and there is no problem that the keywords are too mixed. It can be said that the precise search is the most satisfactory among the five platforms. It also supports a variety of payment methods , from credit cards, electronic payment to supermarket payment, and is also very friendly to people who do not have credit cards. The frequency of specials is quite high . In the past year, I have encountered "25% off three copies" (25% Off) at least ten times, and there are often special sales by publishers, such as the special sale of Tianxia magazine a while ago, together with its parent-children Tianxia, etc. The subsidiary also has a special sale, and when you buy it, you almost see the Taiwan dollar as Japanese currency (usually the Japanese dollar divided by 3 will be the approximate price of the Taiwan dollar), and it is comfortable to lose the entire wheel of time series at one time. Every time you purchase a book over a certain amount (I have never understood how much), a 30 yuan discount coupon will be presented, which can be used when it is over 250 yuan, and with Line Pay and Line Points, the discount is not small .

In terms of reading, the built-in filtering and sorting functions of Dumo’s iOS App are very powerful. The disadvantage is that there is no folder browsing, and only tags can be used for management . It is not so intuitive for me, but it can easily organize cross-category books. It may be a plus point for those who read a lot. In addition, similar to Gooderead , Dumo has its own book recommendation and library sharing platform (Dumo Share Books). The default permission for newly added books to the bookcase is public, that is, if you have set a page on the book sharing platform, others can browse you. For the books you own (of course, you can also manually add books that you don’t buy at Reading Mo), for people who read a lot, it is a bit troublesome to manually set the privacy rights one by one. It is also worth mentioning that Dumo Chang has free points for reading challenges, which can be redeemed for the amount of books purchased, and has reading statistics and weekly goals, which can easily satisfy the sense of achievement of bookworms.

Readmo App and web version also support a variety of e-book formats , from Epub, txt to Word, PDF, which is also a big plus for people who need to read documents but don’t like to look at tablets; some books are not so good at explaining the source. It can also be put in, and the speed of synchronization to the reader is very fast , almost as soon as the web page is uploaded, the synchronization can be completed immediately, which is very convenient.

In terms of the reading function , it is also Miss Google, so I won't go into details. In terms of platform shortcomings, it is a pity that books cannot be read across platforms and must use their home tools. I have listed other shortcomings with the advantages. If you have any doubts, please feel free to ask them below!

Lotte Kobo

As I write this, my phone can't load the update rate of the webpage. (XD)

Rakuten's consumption experience is very unintuitive to me. It can be said that there are more disadvantages than advantages, but because it is a god of three views, it is now my favorite book shopping platform.

In terms of platform login, if you choose a method other than Rakuten account to log in, you need to set up an additional Rakuten account. Without an account, there is no way to accumulate point discounts, and there is no traceability. I didn’t discover this until the consumption amount exceeded 10,000. Hit the wall!

In terms of payment, Taiwan seems to only be able to use credit cards. I can't swipe the Debit cards of Cathay Pacific and First Bank. The bank said that they did not receive the payment request. I don't know if there are restrictions on the platform. I hope other brave people will test and report back. .

The book recommendation and search functions are very, difficult, and easy to use. It seems to follow the Japanese word-by-word search, which is very inaccurate, and there is no way to filter for authors or publishers. I'm disappointed that the series are not grouped together because of the difference between full and half punctuation.

After talking about the advantages, Kobo also often has discounts, but I am not interested in discounted books, and I also miss large discounts or seasonal events, so I don’t know how much the discount is. For users who are used to reading business books In other words, Kobo's discount books should still have some appeal.

In terms of novels, although the search and classification are very bad, the speed of listing can be said to be better than the previous two platforms, and it supports self-publishing, so you can occasionally visit some commercial individuals who are interested in it. The main ethnic group seems to be Japanese light novel readers. Under the category of light novels, there is a very complete library, spanning across the Taiwan Strait and three places; there are also works from the starting point and Jinjiang.

On the app side, there is no reading function but audiobooks are supported. I am not very interested in Chinese audiobooks, so I did not study them in depth, just like reading ink. The interface settings are very complete, from font selection to layout, and there is a very detailed background color temperature control. It is also very friendly to the light-off mode of iOS 13, and the reading experience on the mobile phone is very comfortable. In addition, Rakuten Kobo also has the function of importing foreign books, and there is no folder view.

At first glance, it seems super unsuitable! But Rakuten has one decisive advantage - 99% perfect compatibility with Kindle readers! Based on the completeness of Chinese books, it makes up for the shortcomings of Amazon. Although the transfer procedures are complicated, it is not a problem for me!

Warning: It is illegal to transfer and distribute books, keep a low profile for your own use, cherish publishing and cherish authors, and support your favorite creations with money is a healthy ecology, and everyone is responsible for taking care of authors!

Regarding the file transfer method, please ask Google God yourself, or I will write an article another day. This article is so long that I don't have the strength to go back and check for typos! Converting books to my beloved Kindle is such a delightful and satisfying experience that it alone can make me forget all the shortcomings I mentioned earlier!

Amazon Kindle

My brain cells are dying, and the literati can’t hold it anymore, so I finally wrote about my beloved Amazon——

Amazon has several advantages : most English books can be read aloud, and you can use Audible to listen to the book independently (although I don't subscribe), you can also buy the read aloud version to listen to the book in the Kindle App, and you can also use Bluetooth headphones on the reader. Listening (I have decided to unsubscribe from Spotify and Apple Music); also has the function of importing foreign books, folder view, and multi-selection (one book can be classified into multiple folders); the font can be adjusted and the layout can be customized Co-exist as a template for one-click application, also have reading statistics, and can be used with Goodreads; book recommendations are very accurate (based on book purchase records rather than book libraries), download speed is much better than the top three, and synchronization is the same as the speed of light (and vice versa when foreign books are imported , will be mentioned later), what I love the most is that I can buy books from Europe, the United States, Japan, China, and Taiwan in one stop (local addresses are required). competitive. In addition, De-DRM of books is very easy, and it is also very convenient to export to other platforms for reading; it can be managed by Calibre, a god-level e-book library, and imported directly from Calibre to Kindle. The convenience is unmatched by other platforms. Kindle also has a huge advantage, but it seems to be very low in Chinese circles - very generous trial reading. Most of the trial readings on other platforms are only a few pages, often only to the author's preface, recommendation, table of contents, etc. that are of little reference value to me, and I have stepped on countless mines because of this, but the trial readings on Kindle are often 5/5. One or even a quarter of the book, for readers with a narrow strike zone (such as myself), greatly reducing the chance of stepping on thunder, I usually read the book recommendations on the Internet, read all the trial readings, if I want If you know "what's next", you will buy it immediately.

After talking about the advantages, let’s talk about the disadvantages. Aside from the trouble of buying books (you need to switch stores and local addresses to consume), the trouble of importing books can be said to be a flaw. In addition to the built-in AW3 format, you need to set up a whitelist for importing foreign books to the Kindle, and authorize each book through an email link before entering the library, and the email comes very slowly, the link is only valid for 48 hours, I have waited The maximum time for a letter is three and a half hours. In addition, in the folder management mode, the iOS App and the reader are not synchronized. The folders on the App cannot be seen in the Kindle Grid View, but they can be displayed in reverse. If a folder with the same name is created on the reader It will show that name collision is not available. Another disadvantage that is not considered a disadvantage is that there is no Miss Google storyteller, and most Chinese books are not read aloud, so reading books on the move is somewhat limited, but it has unexpectedly increased my motivation to strengthen English.

other

I know that another good source is Google Books, but I didn't consider it because I've spent a few times in the Google app store and an online store that pays with Google Pay (details have been forgotten) resulting in very large sums of money. There is a single transaction of nearly 100,000 for fraud, and I am still processing this money, the card is still in a frozen state... But this matter was about seven years ago, and I believe that technology has improved now. , but I really have no confidence in human nature, maybe in a few more years!

Other sources are all kinds of dark tactics and low-key laws that are hard to say. Since the book buying channels of Kobo and Kindle, I have rarely used this method to find books, usually old books (I know that there are e-books but have not yet purchased channels. of vintage books) I'll put them in first as a to-buy list.

I finally wrote, finished, I am so tired——

I try my best to describe the experience in detail, with my personal evaluation; since this article writes that my mobile phone cramps frequently, it may take a few days for the reader hardware article to hatch. Hope this article is helpful for anyone considering entering the world of ebooks.

Overall, I still only recommend Kindle as a reader, but I have only used MooInk (reading ink) and Paperwhite 4 (Kindle), other tools welcome Donate to sponsor me. XD

Above, simple(?) sharing!