So, whether you’re looking at one or not, chances are an e-book reader is in your future. As we discussed last week, there are different hardware options, each with their own format. Fortunately, the software options – the formats you download the books in – are “fungible,” and for the most part can be converted between formats used by different devices at the touch of a button (one of the formats is a bit more work – requiring three or four clicks). The magic comes courtesy of a free application called Calibre, perhaps the greatest boon – and bargain – for e-book lovers on the market today.

First, a word about PC reading: If you aren’t ready to sink money into an e-reader just yet, you can download Amazon’s Kindle for PC or Mac for free, and read all the books you care to from the Amazon bookstore. The Kindle application strives to give users as close a look and feel experience to the real thing as possible; if and when you get a “real” Kindle (or iPad, as there is also a Kindle app for Apple’s device as well), you library automatically gets synced up. As of now, there is no way to read Apple iBooks on a non-iPad device, so computer users who want to try e-books before they buy will have to make do with the Kindle desktop app (with hundreds of thousands of book choices, including thousands of free e-books on hundreds of topics, we won’t cry too hard for them).

If you’ve got an e-reader, though, Calibre can help you navigate the wild world of e-book formats successfully. The list of devices Calibre supports is too numerous to reproduce here, but suffice to say that it includes readers neither you nor I (and probably nobody else) has ever heard of! Calibre automatically converts between the e-book’s present format and the format used by the device; all you have to do is import the book into your library and sync your device; your e-book is there, nicely formatted for whatever device you have. Among the other wonders of Calibre is its built in news downloader. Far from a simple RSS downloader, the Calibre news reader lets you access hundreds of newspapers and magazines from around the world, delivered to your device nicely formatted, with table of contents, etc. The news downloader alone is worth the price of Calibre!

Note that some purchased books (like from Amazon) come DRM protected, which is no problem if you’re using a Kindle, or an iPad or laptop with a Kindle application, to read. If you want to load up the book onto your Sony or other e-reader, though, you need to remove the DRM (in this situation, the old adage – “Google is your friend” – comes in handy). Amazon e-books come in two flavors – .AZW format (DRM removable) and .TPZ formant (DRM not removable, from what I have read).

But you may not need to be doing much DRM stripping, once you get through this list of sites where you can download free e-books for your device, for uploading to your device by Calibre or reading on your PC (you can use Calibre’s built-in reader to display any format the application handles). If you have an iPad and use Calibre’s sister app for the device, called Stanza, you have built in access to free books from Feedbooks. Feedbooks has e-versions of the classics, as well as newer self-published or otherwise non-copyrighted material. Similar in content and policy are Bookyards and Memoware. And if you like science fiction, check out the select offerings at the Baen Library.

Wowio has an interesting take on e-books, offering freebies while operating a store, with an emphasis on comic books and graphic novels. The offerings at Wowio are different than what you would find at more traditional sites. When you sign up, you’re allowed to download some of their for-sale comic books for free, and every once in awhile they give away an for-pay e-book to readers, usually sponsored by a software company or book publisher (for example, they’ll give away a previous title of an author whose new book they’re trying to promote). Note that many of the for-sale books are just a buck, so if you’re willing to part with a few shekels, you can build an impressive library of cookbooks, reference, novels, and any other type of book you can think of. Eventually these e-books will be replacing the real thing; think of how much shelf space getting rid of your “analog books” will save!

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What device should you buy? Which makes the most sense for residents of Israel? Which is the best buy, and can I buy it at Best Buy when I travel to the States? So many questions, so little space. Fortunately, I covered the e-book reader scene not long ago (check out the article here), but what good is an e-book reader without content to read? And until recently, content was a problem – which led me to suggest the iPad as the most practical e-reader for Israelis (albeit the most expensive).

Only the iPad’s iBook library gave you the ability to download content directly to your device, as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook (the two major players in the e-reader market) did not allow you to access content from their bookstores in Israel. Apple doesn’t let you use an Israeli credit card at its bookstore either, but you can buy gift cards for the iTunes store and use that credit to buy content for your iPhone or iPad, including at the iBook store (you can even buy the cards online here in Israel.

That was then – but a new development at Amazon threatens to change the value for money balance significantly in their favor. You can now download content from Amazon directly to your PC or your Kindle right here in Israel, using your Israeli credit card. No more blocked content because your IP address is in the “wrong neighborhood,” and no more nudging your friends who had American credit cards to download content for you.

Unfortunately, the Kindle itself is not (yet) available in Israel, but now that the content is available, it would seem to be just a matter of time until the device is sold here, as it is in some 100 countries (the holdup may be in Amazon’s trying to make a deal with a cellphone service provider for a 3G connection). On the other hand, the Kindle isn’t readily available anywhere as of this writing, because Amazon was inundated with orders after cutting the price of some of the devices (the iPad is hard to get, as well). iPads are not yet being officially sold in Israel either, but that is likely to change at some point in the future, as well.

For now, users who want a device but don’t want to go to the States (or send someone there) to buy one can use a service like Mustop to order either device and have it hand-delivered to their address in Israel.

The Nook’s content is only available in North America right now, as is the device itself, and B&N has no immediate plans to begin distributing worldwide, as Apple and Amazon have been doing for awhile. Now that book content is no longer a problem for either device, the question of which one to buy – iPad or Kindle – depends on whether you want to use your device just for reading books, in which case you’d get a Kindle. If you want a device that can do other things as well, like video, web searching, presentations, and much more, you’d go with an iPad. Like they say in the commercials, “there’s an app for that” – whatever it is, and that’s a claim only the iPad can make at this point.

Note that you can also download a Kindle app for the iPad, allowing you to access the Amazon bookstore and download e-versions of the half million or so books available there. The app, which is free, turns the iPad into a virtual Kindle. There is also a Kindle app for iPhone, Android, and even Blackberry devices. Don’t count Kindle out of the app game yet, either. Amazon offers developers a kit they can use to develop apps for the Kindle. While it will probably take Amazon a while (a long while!) to build an app store that iPad and iPhone users would be willing to take seriously, the Kindle’s sub-$200 price (compared to more than double for the cheapest iPad) will definitely sway some customers in these recessionary times.

We’re talking here about content, and content really does dictate buying choices for e-book readers. Maybe you’re more adventurous, and are willing to spend money on a non-Apple or Amazon product, or maybe someone gave you an eGriver Touch as a gift. Can you get content for it? Where would you download books compatible with your off-the-beaten-path device? As it turns out, there are plenty of other e-readers on the market, and some of them may be better deals (ie, have better features, etc.) than any of the “big three.”

But the big three are just that for a good reason – they have the content. If only there were a way to convert e-book content between formats, enabling Nook users to buy Amazon e-books, or iPad users to get deals meant for Nook users. That would be a great hi-tech miracle, wouldn’t it? Well, miracles do sometimes happen, as we will find out in part 2 of the e-book content story, next time!

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Why that doesn’t appear to be the case when it comes to the new crop of electronic book readers, then, is a mystery – especially since one of these newly announced products was at least partially developed in Israel! (I’m sworn to secrecy, so don’t ask). But regardless, the rest of the world is on the verge of a revolution in the way it reads books – while we are, at least for the time being, left behind.

And I mean “the rest of the world” literally; Amazon’s new Kindle 2, which goes on sale next week, will be available in over 100 countries all over the world. Not in Israel, though. After the Kindle 2 announcement, American book giant Barnes and Noble announced its own e-book reader, the Nook. Not here, though; you can’t buy a Nook in Israel, either.

It’s not, I’m sure, because they don’t like us; there are plenty of English language readers here in Israel who would be more than happy to plunk down the ten dollars or so Amazon and Barnes and Noble charge for e-book versions of bestsellers available for download. The Nook is a brand new product, and isn’t available outside the U.S. anyway – so we can’t fume over being left out of Barnes and Noble’s e-book party, at least just yet; every non-American is being excluded as well. But the Kindle 2 is another story; If it’s good enough for the residents of Andorra, Belarus and Papua New Guinea, it should be good enough for us, no?

Apparently not, and it’s instructional to take a peek at the Kindle 2 homepage and try to figure out why Mongolians are eligible to buy a Kindle, but Israelis aren’t. The Arab world is out (fear of possible fatwas for immodest content?), as is China (well-founded fears of copyright infringement), and some poor countries in Africa (although many, like Kenya, Madagascar, and even economic basket-case Zimbabwe. are in).

It’s not clear what problem Amazon has with Israel, but I suspect that it has to do with import licensing rights for physical books, and the desire of large importers of print books into Israel for a piece of the e-action (this Hebrew site provides a good summary of the legal issues in Israel regarding “hard” and “electronic” copies of licensed works). It’s similar to the issues surrounding MP3 downloads. vs. physical CDs; the current licensee (or licensed importer) has first crack at making a deal for the same work in electronic form. And judging from the way the Israeli rights issue is being handled at the iTunes store (you can buy an iPhone for hundreds of dollars here, but not a 99 cent song), we’ll probably be waiting awhile for Amazon to iron things out with the publishers and importers.

Proof? Amazon is happy to sell you anything on the site to customers with an Israeli credit card, and although it won’t necessarily ship everything here, it will ship physical books and CDs. But try downloading a free e-book or MP3 at Amazon, much less buying one, and the site will turn all apologetic about how it cannot serve people in your geographical area.

So what are the alternatives? Well, of course there’s that old standby, the book – but you haven’t read this far just to hear that there’s no hope for e-reading here. Actually, there is an e-reader that you can buy, right here in Israel, at http://www.ebookshop.co.il, one of several Israeli sites that sell Hebrew language e-books. The site sells the Foxit eSlick, which lets you read PDF format e-books (note that the Hebrew site charges NIS 1,499, close to $400, for the eSlick, while it’s listed at the Foxit site for $259. Are import duties really that high?).

So, right there you have an e-reader alternative that’s “kosher” for Israelis, and it certainly looks like a nice device. But there is a trade-off; you’ll be investing in a device that is definitely outclassed by the “big boys,” Kindle and Nook, which are state of the art – including wifi connections to download books anywhere, and a touchscreen, also a feature of Sony’s PRS-600 reader. The Sony device is sold independent of content, unlike the Kindle and Nook (ie you are not expected to purchase books directly from the Sony site, although there is a bookstore you can access). The eSlick doesn’t have any of those things – you connect the device to your computer and manually upload books.

As mentioned, the problem for Amazon and B&N is connected to content downloads. The Kindle is more or less tied to the proprietary format e-books you get from Amazon, so there’s little point in their selling a device you can’t buy books on yet. The Nook is a little more loose, in that it allows you to read books in a variety of formats (more on that below), but B&N is of course interested in selling its content, so again there’s little point in selling an e-reader we can’t buy books for.

Another drawback for the Foxit device is that it only handles PDFs. There are many e-books available in PDF format, but there are just as many, if not more, in ePub (aka open e-book) format, the format read by many e-book computer readers, and used on a host of devices, including the Nook and iPhone (but not the Kindle). Most commercial bestsellers will be available in multiple formats (ie PDF and ePub), but some more esoteric works may not be, so if your device doesn’t handle both, you’re missing out. A battle royale may be shaping up between Amazon and the rest of the e-book world; Amazon sells its e-books in its own proprietary azw format, while B&N, Adobe, Sony, and most everyone else has committed to ePub and other open formats. Amazon, of course, doesn’t have to worry about anyone else, but not all the players (like Google?) have weighed in on the format issue yet.

If you’ve got a cellphone with a decent sized screen, I would suggest using that as an e-book reader for now, until one of the more advanced devices “makes aliyah.” Granted, a cellphone screen is not an e-book reader, but some of the newer phones have screens big enough to make reading less of a hassle. There are ePub readers for nearly all smart phone platforms (except Symbian – sorry, Nokia fans), but I’d suggest sticking with Adobe PDF Reader LE (mobile) edition, which, if your phone doesn’t have it already, will cost you $15, far less than a dedicated PDF e-book reader. What about content? Besides the hundreds of free places to download PDFs from (they’re all over the place), I found a site that has thousands of best-sellers in e-book format (PDF, ePub, and others) that doesn’t seem to have a problem – but don’t tell a certain book importer that you did!

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