The Good:
I love that Google Books work on both Android devices and Chromebooks and any computer browser. Also love that Google uses Epub rather than a locked down, proprietary ebook format. Google allows free upload of up to 1,000 ebooks which is quite generous. Syncing across devices and keeping notes backed up in Google Drive is a nice nice touch as well.
The Bad:
Too often Google books seems like an afterthought today which is kind of amazing considering their once lofty goal of digitizing so many library books. That brings me to a problem with the digitized books, while the selection is huge, and often there are ebooks in their store available nowhere else, many of their books are so full of errors from being digitized that they are irritating to read if not completely unusable.
The Ugly:
What good is it for Google to allow you to upload 1,000 ebooks when it does not allow you to search for those books in your collection, or otherwise organize them? And this from the search giant of the world? Disappointing and in itself nearly makes the service unusable.
Overall I find Google useful for uploading public domain and drm-free ebooks. For reading just a few ebooks at a time so those books stay at the top of the list and I can actually find them. Also Google's text-to-speech function is nice to use as well.
Yet it would be great to see Google Books get some love, the option to set categories and search All the ebooks in the library. It seems a missed opportunity. Too often you cannot find ebooks in the Google Books Store that are available at Kobo and Amazon, which turns you off of buying anything from Google Books Store.
Hoping that Google Books gets some love from the company but so far it feels lacking in a number of ways.
What do you think of Google Books?
Image may be NSFW.I love that Google Books work on both Android devices and Chromebooks and any computer browser. Also love that Google uses Epub rather than a locked down, proprietary ebook format. Google allows free upload of up to 1,000 ebooks which is quite generous. Syncing across devices and keeping notes backed up in Google Drive is a nice nice touch as well.
The Bad:
Too often Google books seems like an afterthought today which is kind of amazing considering their once lofty goal of digitizing so many library books. That brings me to a problem with the digitized books, while the selection is huge, and often there are ebooks in their store available nowhere else, many of their books are so full of errors from being digitized that they are irritating to read if not completely unusable.
The Ugly:
What good is it for Google to allow you to upload 1,000 ebooks when it does not allow you to search for those books in your collection, or otherwise organize them? And this from the search giant of the world? Disappointing and in itself nearly makes the service unusable.
Overall I find Google useful for uploading public domain and drm-free ebooks. For reading just a few ebooks at a time so those books stay at the top of the list and I can actually find them. Also Google's text-to-speech function is nice to use as well.
Yet it would be great to see Google Books get some love, the option to set categories and search All the ebooks in the library. It seems a missed opportunity. Too often you cannot find ebooks in the Google Books Store that are available at Kobo and Amazon, which turns you off of buying anything from Google Books Store.
Hoping that Google Books gets some love from the company but so far it feels lacking in a number of ways.
What do you think of Google Books?
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