Reading books on electronic devices

[Megan]

How does everyone prefer to read books on electronic devices? I normally prefer to read from a physical hardcopy, but I was just give a few ebooks from NetGalley that I want to read. I just downloaded one of them and opened it with the required app on my smartphone. I have a decent sized screen, but it still seems pretty small to read a whole book from. My tablet died and I have not had it fixed. I can try to download the required app/program to open NetGalley books on my laptop, but is there a better way to be able to read these on electronic devices?

I never really preferred to read books on devices, but these from NetGalley look pretty good. I'd rather read the book on a device that buy it new, since books are expensive.

Let me know how everyone reads books from devices!

[Dave]

Megan wrote: "How does everyone prefer to read books on electronic devices? I normally prefer to read from a physical hardcopy, but I was just give a few ebooks from NetGalley that I want to read. I just downloa..."

I was reluctant to venture into e-books, but finally took a deep breath and made the plunge about three years ago. I've owned a Kindle and a Nook (better title selection on the Kindle). Both are good e-readers (I own a circa 2009 Blackberry Storm--no chance of reading a book on it). What I especially like about the e-readers (same could be said for tablet or phone) is that it is more convenient to read in bed before I go to sleep; especially with the black background and white lettering, and turning down the brightness. My tired eyes also appreciate that I can enlarge the font. Finally, with e-books costing less than half what print books cost, I seldom buy paper anymore. However, there is a fondness in my heart for old-fashioned paper books--always will be.

[Groovy]

Agreed! Physical books will always have a place in my heart. But ebooks? At first, I hated that someone invented the kindle, I was skeptical, too. But I absolutely love it!!!!

I don't have a Kindle, but Amazon lets you download the app for free, and it's like having a Kindle on your tablet. Maybe you can try that. I think you can download it on your phone, too.

[Lenita]

You can. I have a Kindle app on my IPhone. It works great!

[K.R.]

When I first decided to read Ebooks I was skeptical. I bought a Kindle. After a few books, it became a god send because my kids didn't touch the kindle, but if they would've seen a physical book laying around, it would be tore up or colored in. They were young when I first bought my kindle. Then I liked to lay and relax before bed to read and the kindle was just too big for me. I gave up, got an iPhone and downloaded the kindle app. I love it!

[Jim]

I do not own an electronic reader, prefering to read traditional print books exclusively. That said; my four adult children and four grandchildren do read e-books, but seem to prefer traditional print most of the time.

Though probably not indicative of readers' preferences as a whole, the most recent quarterly sales report for my novel revealed the following breakdown by-format preference of sales year-to-date (Aug.9, 211 - Sept. 30, 2016).
Paperback - 47.4%
E-Book - 46.3%
Audio Book on CD - 3.5%
Audio Book Download - 2.8%

[Dave]

Jim wrote: "I do not own an electronic reader, prefering to read traditional print books exclusively. That said; my four adult children and four grandchildren do read e-books, but seem to prefer traditional pr..."
Thanks for sharing the stats. E-book market share is increasing faster than I had realized. Last I heard (maybe a year+ ago) it was around 25%.

[Zee]

You might be reading pdf books on your phone - these can just be zoomed in/out and make for some really tough reading on a smaller screen.
It's easier to read epub books on a small screen, because you can adjust the font and it re-flows on the page to fit your screen. You also have the option of black/white background (at least you do on Aldiko Book Reader, which is a preferred medium for reading epubs).

Easiest option with Netgalley, though, is to download the Kindle app on your phone (it's available for iOS or Android - I have the Android version on both my phone and tablet). When you get the Kindle app, it will give you an email address that end in @kindle.com
Take this address, add it on Netgalley. Then make sure the Netgalley address is in your safe list on the Kindle app (you might need to do this on a computer at the Amazon.com site, Manage My Kindle section).
When you've got this set up, click Send to Kindle for all your Netgalley books, and you then download them onto the Kindle app when you open it on your phone with an Internet connection.
Perk of this - Netgalley books sent to Kindle never expire, whereas if you download to a computer (usually through Adobe Digital Editions), you have maybe 60 days tops before the copy expires and you lose it.