e-Book Basics

     
  • What's an e-Book?
  • An e-Book is an electronic (or digital) version of a book that can be read on a desktop or portable computer, or with a handheld electronic device like an iPad, Kindle, Tablet, or Smartphone. e-Books are just like printed books-- only better in many ways!

     
  • Why buy an e-Book?
  • Convenience. When your favorite books are in electronic form, you don't have to wait days for delivery. You might be able to begin reading a new e-Book almost immediately because a credit card purchase permits a no-delay download. Your new book could be available in minutes.

    Flexibility. e-Books are available on multiple platforms, so you can read e-Books on your desktop computer, laptop, or many handheld devices. You can build up a ‘library’ of e-Books and carry them with you, so you can read them wherever you choose. Depending on your device, you may be able to carry hundreds, or even thousands of e-Books – so you’ll always have something you want to read, with you!

    Functionality. With an e-Book, you can search for text, look up word definitions, resize the text, or change the text orientation on the screen and still enjoy the functionality of traditional print books, such as highlighting text, making annotations, or book-marking pages. Exact features will vary by e-Book reader format.

    Availability. Since e-Books are stored electronically, older books are always available. You'll never receive a 'Sorry, out-of-print' notice.

    Special features. Some e-Books contain bonus content not available in print editions, as well as advanced navigational features, such as hyperlinks to narrative notes.

     

  • What do I need to read an e-Book?
  • A reading medium, naturally, and before you can download and read an e-Book, you might need to download and install free software called an e-Book reader on your computer or handheld device. Most handheld devices come with at least one software reader already installed. The e-Book reader allows you to control the e-Book functions, such as contrast settings, page turning, font size, and built-in dictionaries.

     

  • What are the different e-Book formats?
  • There are a number of e-Books formats, and software continues to change dynamically, but three formats (ePub, Mobi, and PDF) currently dominate the world of e-Book publishing.


    • ePub
    • Almost all e-Book sellers now offer the ePub format. It has become the world-wide standard for e-Books among the majority of e-Book sellers, and most handheld devices come with the ePub reader software preloaded. Amazon's Kindle is the notable exception.

    • Mobi
    • Developed by a French company since acquired by Amazon, this format works well on all Kindle devices. Free software applications for devices offered by electronics companies such as the Apple iPad, PCs, Smartphones, and certain Android tablets are available from Amazon so those other devices can play the Mobi format.

    • AZW
    • This is also the Mobi format, rebranded by Amazon. It includes a few upgrades not found in the original Mobi format that allow Amazon to include piracy protection (DRM), track your reading habits, see what you've highlighted, and interact with your device so Amazon can perform routine tasks such as removing a book from a device if they believe you shouldn't have it.

    • PDF
    • The Adobe Acrobat Reader software format. Adobe offers versions for multiple platforms. All readers are free downloads, and allow you to read e-Books on your desktop computer, laptop computer, and numerous other devices.

    • RTF, TXT, HTML, iBooks, Microsoft Reader, eReader(.pdb)
    • Just a few of the numerous other formats used by readers since the birth of e-Books. iBooks is a fairly new proprietary format developed by Apple that ties a user to their equipment. RTF, TXT, and HTML were developed for other uses and adapted for some readers. The Microsoft Reader and eReader software has slowly disappeared as the three main formats gained worldwide acceptance.

     

  • Can I lend or give my e-Book to a friend?
  • It's illegal to make copies of e-Books, just as it's illegal to make copies of computer software. You can, however, lend your e-Books to family and friends by lending them the device that contains the e-Book.





Purchasing and Downloading

     

  • How do I buy an e-Book?
  • Before you purchase your e-Book, make sure you have already determined the format(s) required by your preferred e-Book device and reader software. (Note that you might be able to download more than one type of e-Book format, depending upon your eReader device or computer system.)

    When you are ready to make your purchase, you simply click on the link we provide on this site. You enter your email address and credit card data into the secure website page, then click on 'Pay.' The financial institution we use for media distribution (Selz.com) uses a secure server for the processing of all financial transactions. That can be verified by the 'https:' in their URL address where you usually see 'http:'. DePrima.com does NOT store any credit card information in our servers. We do not even see that data.

    After that, continue with your shopping. Once your payment has cleared, the book file and a 'completed purchase' confirmation email will be sent to your email address of record. Please remember that while most payments clear within seconds, some payments can take longer to clear, depending on your bank. Please let us know if a transaction takes longer than a few hours and we'll investigate.

     

  • When will I receive my e-Book?
  • Once you have completed the purchase requirements, you will receive a receipt with a download link so you can almost immediately begin to read your new book. You also have the option of having the book sent to your Amazon Kindle, or to the cloud storage site DropBox if you have an account set up with them. So you will then have access to your e-Book as quickly as your internet connections allow. With credit cards, debit cards, or PayPal, the purchase process usually takes just seconds.

     

  • How long does it take to download an e-Book?
  • e-Books can be downloaded in less than a minute with broadband connections, and often take mere seconds. Books come in all different sizes, and transmission depends on the length of the e-Book, the number and size of images, and other factors. If you have one of the older-style dial-up accounts and a 56K modem, a novel of about 300 pages might take several minutes.

     

  • Where can I find my e-Book after downloading?
  • The e-Book should be in your 'Download' folder once you activate the download link on the receipt sent to your email account. If the receipt is delayed, perhaps the purchase transaction hasn't completed

     

  • How long can I keep my e-Book?
  • You are licensed to enjoy your e-Book for the rest of your life. Copyright laws restrict you from distributing copies, but the original is yours to enjoy forever. I recommend you make a backup copy in case you have a hard drive failure.

     

  • If I buy an e-Book in one e-Book format, can I read it in a different e-Book format?
  • Some devices can only accept certain formats and e-Book file formats are not interchangeable. But, there are conversion programs such as the great freeware program Calibre that converts an ebook to different formats. You still cannot distribute copies legally, but it allows you to read your licensed e-Books on different readers, smart phones, tablets, etc.

     

  • Do I have to pay any shipping and handling charges for my e-Book?
  • We impose no shipping and handling charges for e-Books, however, we are obligated by law to collect sales taxes and VAT charges in a VERY FEW jurisdictions for eBooks and hard goods. Our offices are located in California, USA, and purchases of products such as print books, shipped to locations within the state, may be subject to shipping charges and the state's sales tax.

     

  • Can I acquire an e-Book without a credit card?
  • Our media distribution company accepts most major credit cards, including: Visa, Mastercard, Discover, AMEX, JCB, and Diner's Club. If you don't have a major credit card, or choose not to use one, we accept PayPal, and most Debit cards where your card has been approved for on-line purchases. For security reasons, DePrima.com does not store any credit card information in our servers, so you will have to enter your payment information for each purchase. We recommend you add your purchases to a shopping cart and then complete the transaction just once.

     

  • Can I make a purchase by phone?
  • Purchases through DePrima.com can only be made online, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

     

  • Can I buy an e-Book as a gift?
  • If you have the email address of the gift recipient, you can have the purchased book(s) sent directly to that address. If the recipient has noreply@selz.com registered on their Amazon account as an Approved Email Sender, you can even have the book sent directly to their Kindle.

     

  • How do I send a newly downloaded e-Book to my Kindle?
  • There are two methods for uploading books to Kindle devices. We'll discuss the preferred method first.

    Method 1 - All you really have to do is add your personal email address to the list of Approved Email Senders in your Amazon account so that Amazon doesn't assume the email is SPAM and discard it. Then send any mobi book file or document from your personal email account to your kindle's email address. Using this system, you only have to change your Amazon account the one time, unless you later change your email address.

    Every Kindle owner is given up to 5 Gigabytes of spaces in Amazon Cloud Storage (Amazon's servers), and that's a LOT of space for documents. My books in Mobi (Kindle) format are less than one Megabyte, while books in PDF format can be 5 megabytes or more. With 5 gigabytes of space available, your cloud account can hold about 5,000 full length mobi novels.

    • Step 1
    • Go to Amazon. After logging in, find the 'Your Account' link on the top right-hand side of most pages, and move your cursor over it. A large box will open giving multiple choices for additional actions (This may take a few seconds depending upon how busy Amazon's computers are, your connection speed, etc.) Move your cursor downward until it's positioned over 'Manage Your Content and Devices,' and click on it.

      account access


    • Step 2
    • You will be asked to log in again as account protection. Once you're logged in, you're taken to a new page. Look for the 'Settings' tab and click on it.

      setting tab


    • Step 3
    • Scroll down to the 'Personal Document Settings' area. The email address established by Amazon for your Kindle is located there. You can accept that (it must end with @kindle.com) or edit it. Make a note of this address. You'll need it later to send the file to your 'Cloud Storage' account at Amazon.

      email address


    • Step 4
    • Scroll down to the 'Approved Personal Document E-mail List.' That's where you add your personal email address, or the email address of any individual or company from whom Amazon should accept email content to be placed into your Personal Documents space. If you have had the new eBook downloaded to your computer's 'DOWNLOADS' folder, when you purchased the eBook, you can then send the book to your Kindle account directly by 'attaching' it to an email and sending it to your Kindle's email address. Or, you can have us forward the book directly to your Kindle account. eBooks ordered from this website will be sent from:  noreply@selz.com.   That's the address you must place in your Kindle account. So you see, it's really very simple. Should the file be garbled in transmission or lost, now or at a later date, you can always contact me using the address on this website's 'Contacts' page and I will send a replacement book from my webserver. To facilitate that, I always request that the purchaser also add:  admin@deprima.com   to their Approved List of Email Senders. It doesn't hurt to have extra email addresses listed in your account.

      email address


    • Step 5
    • Some people already prefer to first download the eBbook to their personal computer and then send it themselves to their Kindle Cloud Storage later. That makes resolution easier and faster if there's a problem at a later date because you can always resend a copy of the eBook that you have in your computer if Amazon should happen to lose their copy or it becomes corrupted on their server. The email should be blank (no subject), with nothing at all in the body. Just attach the file (attach it, don't post it in the body of the email) and send it off. If you prefer to have us send the book directly to Amazon, make sure you've entered the email addresses   noreply@selz.com  AND  admin@deprima.com  to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List.


    • Step 6
    • Go to DePrima.com and purchase the book. Be sure to select the Mobi version for older Amazon Kindles. The newer devices such as the Fire Tablets also accept PDF formats, but mobi is still the better choice if you only read with a Kindle. The PDF is preferable if you read on a large monitor. (Amazon has banned ePub files, the world-wide standard for ebooks, on all of their devices.) If you encounter any problems, contact us at the business address listed on our CONTACT page and we'll begin working on a solution. Should you lose your eBook purchased through this website, and you haven't changed your email address, we'll send you a replacement as quickly soon as possible.

      When the purchase is complete and the transmission of the book has taken place, the book will either be available in your computer's DOWNLOADS folder or at Amazon. Again, as with everything else on-line, the speed with which this will happen depends on the email service you're using if you've chosen to save a backup copy in your computer. If you've sent it directly to Amazon, the availability will depend on how busy Amazon's system is at the moment.

    • Step 7
    • When Amazon processes the email and moves the file to your cloud storage, it's put into the 'DOCS' folder. In the past, it showed up under 'BOOKS' and 'ALL,' but no more. Under the 'Your Content' tab, select 'DOCS' in the 'Show:' box. All of your personal documents will appear.

      docs folder


    • Step 8
    • Then click on the 'Select' box next to the book title. You will get the option to 'Deliver' or 'Delete'. If you select Deliver, a box will then open that shows all of the Kindle devices registered to your account. Send it to whichever devices you use for reading books. If you accidentally click on Delete, we can send you replacement copy, but it may not happen until regular working hours. This is where having a backup copy in your computer really helps out.

      docs folder2


      docs folder3


    • Step 9

      Enjoy the book!

    • That's all!
    •   It might look more complicated than it is, but we wanted to explain it in such detail that chances for confusion were lessened.

      Method 2: This second method is even easier, and infinitely quicker IF you have a USB connection on your Kindle. We've heard that some of the less expensive models don't have this capability, but we haven't confirmed that.

    • Step 1
    • After buying a book and sending it to your personal email account, store a copy in a 'library' data directory somewhere on your home computer. This ensures that if you clear out your 'old' mail, or change email providers, you won't lose the book.

    • Step 2
    • Connect your Kindle to your home computer using a USB connection. Usually, the power cord to recharge your Kindle is a USB cord that plugs from your Kindle into a small white power adapter. Gently pull the connection from the electric adapter, if it's the removable kind, and plug the cord into a USB port on your computer.

    • Step 3
    • When your computer senses the kindle connection, it will list the new device with your attached computer devices such as hard drives, memory sticks, external disk drives, DVD devices, etc.

    • Step 4
    • Go to the Kindle directory on your home computer and open the 'documents' folder. You should see all of your books listed there.

    • Step 5
    • Simply copy the new book from the library directory mentioned in Step 1 and paste it into the Kindle's 'document' folder.

    • That's all there is to it!
    • Now, when you use your Kindle, you should see the new book listed with the others.

       

    • How can I download my new mobi e-Book to my Samsung Tablet?
    • Samsung Tablets do not natively play Mobi formatted files. Amazon offers a free app designed to play Mobi and AZW files on these tablets, but that will only play books purchased at Amazon. To play books purchased from other stores, plus other formats such as ePub, HTML, and others, you need to download a freeware app called FBReader. The free app is available for download at cNet, or through the Android playstore.

       

    • Does DePrima.com use DRM in it's books?
    • No book sold through this site has DRM. We don't like DRM (it's anti-piracy encryption) and have never used it on our books. We trust that purchasers will not violate the trust we have in them and not distribute our books illegally. None of our books on Amazon contain DRM encryption, but when the ebook business was in its infancy (before 2013), some ebook vendors added DRM to the uploaded books automatically. These days most ebook vendors offer publishers the choice. We make every effort to ensure that DRM is not added to new books, but some of our earlier books on sites like B&N, Apple, and Kobo may have had it added, and they won't allow us to remove it. We're sorry but we can't tell you which books, or at which vendors, it might have been added. All we can do is promise that it's not added to any new books at any resellers sites. It's gotten so ridiculously easy to remove DRM by anyone with even modest computer skills, that adding DRM is a worthless gesture, and it only stops users from fully enjoying the book by preventing them from easily copying the book to the various electronic reading devices they own.





    Problems or Difficulties

       

    • What should I do if I have problems opening or downloading my e-Book?
    • Report the problem to us at business@deprima.com. We'll figure out the problem and try to get you back on track.

       

    • Can I return an e-Book?
    • The first chapter of every book is offered free so that buyers can make an informed purchasing decision about a particular book before making the commitment to purchase. DePrima.com only allows e-Books to be returned for technical difficulties, and only after reasonable efforts have been made to resolve those issues.

       

    • How do I cancel an order?
    • Before the final submission of your order (clicking on the PAY button), you may close the transaction window, which effectively terminates the process. After you submit your order, you cannot cancel your order and you will receive the download of your purchased e-Book as soon as the payment to our financial institution is complete.

       

    • What happens if I lose my e-Book device or my computer crashes?
    • After you have restored the e-Book reader capability, just send us a message regarding your situation. Although we do not retain any credit card information, we will have a record of the purchase and will send you a replacement copy of the book.





    Copyrights

       

    • Which pages on this website can be legally copied?
    • Without written permission from the copyright holder, it is illegal to copy anything on this website. Purchasing an e-Book gives you the right to possess the single copy sent to you, but you may not reproduce it for distribution, even if you make no money from said distribution. You can find more specific copyright information here.