I am looking for easy to understand information on puchasing digital books (although I am not sure that is accurate, it appears you don't really buy them only lease them). I have read several articles on the 'Net and Wikipedia but they were more technical than I needed.  Is there a site or does someone have some good overview information.  Bottomline, I am very interested in getting into electronic books,  I was given a device for Christmas, but I want to understand more before I started 'buying' digital books. Are electronic books truly purhased or just loaned? Tradable?  Device or software dependent?  I thought this would be straightforward but the more I've looked into it the more confused I've become.

T.I.A!

What device were you given? Makes it easier to give you information if we know if it's a Sony or Nook or Kindle or other ereader.
There are some apps out there that allow you to buy any book and then transfer them into the correct file type for your ereader.

 Some books can be 'loaned" to friends for 2 weeks. You cannot sell them or give them to other people.  Basically you buy the right to read it but don't own it.

Books bought from Amazon, work on the kindle.

Books bought from barnes and noble work on the Nook and sony

Indie ebook stores can sell various different formats that would suit which ever ereader you have.

Buying ebooks is very straight forward IF you have a Nook or Kindle as they allow you to buy it straight from the ereader itself.
 

Xengab has some good info for you.

One thing you'll run aross a lot is the abbreviation "DRM", which stands for Digital Right Management. There are various ways booksellers (at the request of the publishers) will "Lock" books to a single device to avoid people doing unauthorized sharing. The Publishers, and a lot of authors, are well aware that one digital file can be shared endlessly by people, cutting into their sales. Some insist on having their book locked to the device that the ebook buyer ownes.

But more and more publishers and authors are letting their stuff go out DRM-less, or without DRM. That means a book can usually be converted to another format, so the buyer can upt it on the machine of their choice.

So if you want to buy ebooks to fit various machines, you can look for DRM-less formats. Even Amazon has them, but they're not really searchable. You mostly run across them by accident.

There's a whole web site with forums based on ebooks and ereading. You can learn a lot there.

There are also sites that list tradable books through Amazon and Barnes and Noble for those who have books authors allowed to be traded once. They hook people up to make the trades. And lots of free books out there, in various formats.

Just let us know what you have, and we can hook you up wit web site links.

For news, general information, programs, hacks and all other subjects related to ebooks and ereaders, you should check out ...

Mobileread

http://www.mobileread.com/

To get to the forums, click on the Forum link at the top and then you can find the forum specific to your device, or your interest. They even have cleaned up copies of a lot of the Copyright Free Classics there as well.

Just don't ask how to break DRM or ask to trade books illegally. They can't answer those questions or allow links to pirate sites to be posted, for legal reasons.

There is a free program called Calibre for organizing and converting your books.  I strongly recommend it if you are not going through the bookstore that is attached to your device.  It makes it easy to back up your files.  It can be sorted in various ways, plus you can add your own sort categories.

There are Calibre software add ons (from third parties) that can help remove DRM.

If you are going to get ePub (any non-Kindle) library books, you will need to set up an Adobe Digital Reader account.  This should be on your computer.  This is also needed for one of the most common forms of DRM. 

What kind of device did you get and do you want to purchase a book and keep it or simply read a book and then you're done with it? Lucky you- you live in Roswell, part of the Atlanta Fulton County library system. They currently have 4500+ free ebooks available for download for both Kindle and Nook. Give us more info about what you have and what you want to do with it.

Thanks all, some great info for me to dig into.  Initially I intentionally left off the device type because I was concerned about repsonses regarding product as opposed to overall information.  I received an Ipad Mini.  So far I am loving it.

Basically, it seems that if I am interesting in 'owning' a book than I need "DRM-less" for the most flexibility? But since it seems that you mostly rent a book anyway, it is worth looking into the lending done by libraries etc.

Kicker- all you need to do is download the apps for B&N and Kindle, you can get the best of both places.  Since your device is basically a small computer, ALL ebooks should work on it.   You aren't restricted because you dont have an ereader you have a tablet.   :)

Also there are many libraries that SELL membership to get ebook loans. The Free library of Philadelphia is the one with the most ebooks.

When you "buy" a ebook you are buying a license to read the book. The publisher may or may not have DRM on it. They may or may not allow lending.

It is much like buying a piece of software. You can't make unlimited copies of most software.

My advice would be to download any book you really enjoy and may want to read again. 

    and other sites online will send you Daily Amazon/Kindle Freebies!