The Wonderful World of Polly

So, I got a wild hair and decided I just had to have one! One what you ask? Well it's a hand held device sort of like an mp3 player only for books. You can go to an online bookstore like amazon, fictionwise, my bookstore and more, and many others. There you can purchase digital books. Usually at less cost than a hard copy and no shipping. Through the Gutenberg project you can even download free books. I go through voracious reading spurts where I will read 10 or more books in a month. I'm also one those weirdo's that will read more than one book at a time.

I started buying and downloading books to my computer a little over a year ago. While this was a cost effective alternative for me I found reading whole books on my "puter" cumbersome at best. I like to lay in bed and read and the laptop just doesn't work for that.

Now I am only slightly more computer literate than a rock, contrary to what certain family members think. Customer support is crucial for me. That being said I chose to go with a less costly model in the ebookwise ereader. When I finally got the device to connect to the store site I could download books that I purchased at ebookwise but not any other site or books that I had already downloaded to my computer. Which is the whole reason I wanted an ereader.

Unfortunately, ebookwise appears to have a customer support dept that consists of one person that only works two days a week and can only be reached via email. Oh sure, they ask you for your phone number and best time to call. They say they will respond in 24 hrs. The first issue I contacted them about was not responded to for three days. The emailed response did not address the issue I had. The second issue, that of wanting to know what the return policy was, did not get an answer for four days. Again via email. I would have thought they would want to talk to me, see what the problem was. Try to keep me as a customer.

After 15 hours (and lots of grumbling and grouching) trying to make the device do what it was supposed to do I gave up. I ordered an Amazon Kindle. While the device is cost prohibitive it does all I want it to do and then some. It has an mp3 player on it. You can even connect to the web and read blogs. The best thing about the Kindle is the customer support. A phone number to a live person in the US. Within half an hour of receiving the device I was downloading books to it and reading some of the blogs that I follow.

Amazon will be releasing a new version of Kindle this fall and I probably should have waited for it but, I love my Kindle. It does all that I want it to do and now I can get rid of these stacks of books piled all over my house.