Over ninety percent of my readers are Mobipocket users so you can imagine my irritation at hearing that they won't be getting an iPhone app.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel, however!
While I was scouring the web for an easy and quick way to create quality ePub files, I ran across something in the Stanza / LexCycle forums that I knew would help my readers and many others who have been Mobipocket customers for years: The instructions to legally use your Mobipocket books on the iPhone using the Kindle app.
I'll be honest: I don't own an iPhone. They're expensive and I can't afford one or the plan that comes with it. I know many, many people who do, however. I'm also seeing very slow progress with the vendors who have been tasked with offering my work on their iPhone compatible readers so alternative vendors aren't working out very well at this point. Mobipocket has been a fantastic partner, however and I've been looking for a way for my readers to use their Mobipocket books on their iPhones. Here it is.
(1) Install Kindle on your iPhone.
(2) Get the Kindle PID (it won't tell you, you have to run a script).
(3) Go back to where you obtained your eBooks and get new versions containing DRM for the PID of your iPhone.
(4) Run the new PRC files through a script which will make them readable by Kindle.
(6) Copy the files across to your iPhone and start reading. Here are the scripts.
http://rapidshare.com/files/215202363/Mobipocket_DRM_Tools.zip
You can thank the folks at Stanza / LexCycle for these valuable directions. I wish I could offer support and help for this method, but I don't expect to have an iPhone for a while. I'm just happy there's a solution for everyone who has a Mobipocket library full of books and an iPhone.
If you're a new reader I suggest you purchase my work through Amazon for the Kindle App. All my work is available in Kindle format here. My books will always be available from the Kindle and Mobipocket stores.
Thank you for sticking with me through this ridiculous format war (which is pretty much being orchestrated by Amazon at this point as they own Mobipocket as well as Stanza / LexCycle). I hope we all come out with everything we need.
[EDIT] A concern has come up with step 6 of this post. LexCycle has no more information to add on the process outlined here so if anyone can shed some extra light on this, go ahead post it in the comments, I'll ammend this post.
RL
If you're a Mobipocket customer and already have most of my books but have switched to an iPhone / iPod Touch , don't fret, there's an event coming up that will help.
[EDIT: If you're looking for a place to purchase my work for the iPhone or iPod touch, use your Stanza Reader app to browse to the Smashwords Store or follow the Smashwords store link to the right. Everything I write will be available there. This development took place after this blog entry was posted.]
6 comments:
Unfortunately, the problem comes in step 6. I don't know whether this is addressed in the Stanza forum posting where you found the information or not, but there is no way that I know of to copy files over to the Kindle application of a non-jailbroken iPhone/iPod Touch. It doesn't have a sync conduit except to download Kindle-edition books directly from Amazon.
Oh, and in re your quest for a converter, check out Calibre. Version 0.6 just came out recently. It works for me.
Sadly, content created by Calibre was rejected by two major retailers recently, I don't think they're there just yet but I'm watching development.
Does it still work? On the Mobipockt forums [1] there hat been reports that Mobipocket won't accept converted Kindle PIDs any more. As an Amazon subsidiary it's no problem for them to check if a PID belongs to a Kindle.
Apart from that I asked my favourite eBOOK shop beam-ebooks [1] if they would host you works.
All content at beam-ebook is DRM free - so no PID fiddling needed. Beam-ebook also has a Stanza catalogue so jail breaking isn't needed either.
Beam can deliver PDF, MOBI and ePUB - as said all without DRM.
Ok, there is a tiny drawback - it's a German shop.
So we see what happens. I would really love to see your books at beam as PDF is quite unwieldy and I decided for myself that buying ad Mobipocket is last resort. There service has deteriorated significantly since the Amazon takeover. I honestly see no future for Mobipocket.
Martin
[1] http://www.mobipocket.com/forum/index.php
[2] http://www.ebook-journal.de/forum/buchwunsche/werke-von-randolph-lalonde
If Beam-eBook had an English translation to their page I'd sign up in a heartbeat. As for the PID issue, it's looking more and more like Mobipocket is forcing the users who are picking up iPhones to strip the DRM protection from all their books (which works). I can't discuss that here, but there is a link in the above post that does.
I've managed to form a good relationship with www.smashwords.com and all my work will be available there in addition to Mobipocket and Amazon now. They sell non-DRM eBooks in pretty much every format out there, so getting my work onto the iPhone isn't a problem. Now the only problem left is all the Mobipocket customers who already have large libraries of books they can't transport over.
Thank you for approaching Beam for me, by the way. German or not, I'll be happy to work with them if they're willing, as long as we can communicate.
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