I’m very proud of myself! I figured out how to:
1) download Adobe Digital Editions, so I could download ePUB books with DRM from the Borders and Kobo bookstores (both free books and books I buy.)
2) authorize my computer on Digital Editions, so I can actually open DRMed books when I get them
3) download the Sony Reader Library, so I could authorize my Sony Reader as one of the devices I can read my DRMed books on
4) authorize my Sony Reader on Digital Editions
5) import authorized files from the My Digital Editions folder into Calibre, an e-book management software program.
6) import and upload DRMed books to Calibre and thence to my Sony Reader.
This all started because last month, Borders and Kobo were giving away some free books – free, but with DRM. Now granted, few of the books were ones I would normally purchase even in paperback, but I figured they would make good test cases before I actually bought any e-books.* And there were at least a few I thought I might enjoy reading. I downloaded Digital Editions so I could download the free books.
Not long after that, Kobo offered a book by an author I like for only $2.99, which is a price I am perfectly happy to pay. So I bought it. But at that point, I still hadn’t authorized my Sony Reader, which proved to be a bit more complex than just plugging it into the computer and bringing up the Digital Editions software. I could read the book on my computer, but not on my Sony Reader.
Today, I finally finished the whole process of downloading the necessary software from Sony, authorizing my Reader, and transferring the files to Calibre.** Then I uploaded to my reader the free books and the one I had bought, checked that I actually CAN read them (yes, I can – at least the one I paid for, which is the one I went to first), cheered, and bought a fantasy novel for $2.99.
And to do all that, I also had to deal with my system locking up once so I had to restart, followed by a system crash on the first restart. And I did every bit of it without the help of my spouse/computer guy – though I did make use of the Help pages at the Adobe Digital Editions site and the Sony Library site, as well as the Calibre forum on MobileReads.
Maybe I am not quite as technologically clueless as I thought.
* * * *
* Up until now, I’ve had lots of public-domain and legally-DRM-free free e-books on my e-reader, but I hadn’t purchased any books with DRM.
** Calibre can’t open DRM books for reading on the computer, the way Digital Editions can. But I like the interface and the way it manages my e-book files, and all my public-domain books were already in it. Since it is safest to use a single program to upload books to the reader device, I decided to stick to Calibre to manage my e-book library.
