Thursday 6 December 2012

Seven reasons why you might buy an ereader


Seven reasons why you might buy an eReader
 
As booksellers, many customers assume that we are antagonistic to eReaders but our concern is with the visually impaired, and enabling them to continue to enjoy a major pleasure – reading.
Whilst we love books, there are many reasons why we would suggest that you consider ebooks. We are now selling the Kobo Glo, which is particularly easy to adjust font, type size, margins, and the brightness of light thrown on the screen.
What we like about ebooks and the Kobo Glo in particular are the following:
  1. Availability: There are about 3 million ebooks available (compared to the 25,000 books in large print that are available in this country). About 1 million of these books are free of charge, including all the out of copyright classics such as Thomas Hardy, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, etc.
  2. Price: large print books are larger than normal print, their print runs are very short, and so the prices are high, especially of the out of copyright classics which are often produced to order, one at a time (print on demand). Four such classics could easily cost £25 each, which happens to be the cost of the Kobo Glo (£99.99).
  3. Weight: For many of our customers, weight can be an important consideration, especially if suffering from arthritis. Our best seller, Wolf Hall, weighs over 3 pounds (1.376 kilos) whereas the Kobo Glo, which will hold 1,000 such books, weighs under 7 ounces (182 grams).
  4. Font size: our books are nearly all 16 point, but you can adjust the font size of the Kobo Glo up to about 24 point. But do bear in mind that the ‘page’ size is quite small – about 6 inches – so the larger the font, the more frequent the page turns. The font is crisp, and you have a choice of seven fonts, including one particularly suitable for dyslexics.
  5. Page turns are easy: it is important that an ereader is easy to operate. Just touch the screen on the right-hand side to go onto the next page; touch the left hand to go back a page.
  6. The screen is lit: early eReaders were not lit up – you needed a source of light to read, just as with a book. The new generation of ereaders have their own light and the Kobo Glo is reckoned to be the best. Brightness is adjustable and you should be able to read comfortably even in the dark.
  7. Read on more than one device: when you buy a kobo ebook, you can read it on different devices such as your tablet, ipad, desktop, netbook, laptop, or even your smartphone, etc. You can have five devices registered to your account and can keep all your books synced between them. This means that if you select books for a parent, and their ereader is registered to you, you can read the same book at the same time, or any time you choose in the future.
 
Available for immediate dispatch: we currently have four Kobo Glos in stock. The price is £99.99 and we send them free of charge by Royal Mail Special Delivery for delivery the next working day (Monday to Friday) by 1 pm.  Providing our website says “currently in stock”  you should receive the Kobo Glo the next day, if you order by 4 pm. We do not give you a choice of colour: like Henry Ford with his Model T you can have any colour you like as long as it is black.

If you would like to see a short video (less than a minute) about the Kobo Glo then please click here.
To see a three minute demonstration click here.
To buy the Kobo Glo now click here.

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Discover the pleasure of listening to a good book!




Many people who enjoy reading large print books also enjoy audiobooks; we meet many people who can no longer manage 16 point print size and they then move on to audiobooks.

The RNIB provide a marvellous service for those who need audiobooks and have 18,000 unabridged titles. But our audiobook partner (you can find a link on our website on the right hand side) have 48,000 unabridged titles.

I am currently listening to Hilary Mantel’s marvellous Bring Up the Bodies, her sequel to Wolf Hall, and this year’s Man Booker prize winner. This book is not yet available in large print (it is due to be published in February 2013), but listening to an unabridged book has been a revelation to me – I find myself engrossed every morning when I take my dogs for a walk on Royston Heath.

You can download a free audiobook via our website (there are 60,000 titles – including some abridged ones – to choose from). If you like what you hear, you can download a book a month for only £7.99, or 12 books for £69.99 (£5.84 each) or 24 books for £109.99 (£4.59 each). You can cancel your membership at any time.

The books are yours to own and keep and you can have more than one listening device (ipod, tablet, laptop, smartphone, etc.) registered to your account, so your partner, child or parent can listen to the same book at the same time!

Best wishes

Guy Garfit