# Question about Mobile Reference books.



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

Okay, so I was looking today and noticed that Mobile Reference sells large collections of authors' works for $4.79 each.  Conan Doyle's has over 200 works (books and short stories) for $4.79.  All of Shakespeare's works for the same price.  Etc.  

I know that most of these are public domain, and can be downloaded for free.  

What I would like is for different opinions on whether it is better to download them for free or to buy them in the files from Mobile Reference.  

These are the pros and cons to Mobile Reference as I see them:

1) One pro is that the price is not bad for the number of works.
2) Another pro is that all of the works are in one file with a linked Table of Contents.  This means that you don't have multiple pages of an author's works; they are all in one file on one page.  The files also seem to be compressed, so they don't seem to take up as much room as downloading the individual books would.
3) One con is that no matter what price, you are paying for books that would otherwise be free.


These are the pros and cons of getting them for free:

1) Obvious pro, they are free. 
2) Another pro is the fact that you can know how far you are in one book.  With the MR copies, the Kindle sees it as one file, so you will never really know how far you are in a book, only in the entire file.  
3) A con is that if you want all of an author's works, you will have them taking up more room overall (the MR files seem to be compressed, or something) and they will be scattered all over the Kindle.

What do you think?


----------



## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

You can actually make them into a single volume yourself, if you know a bit of HTML and/or can be a bit clever with the Mobipocket Creator software.  It does take some time, though.


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

marianner said:


> You can actually make them into a single volume yourself, if you know a bit of HTML and/or can be a bit clever with the Mobipocket Creator software. It does take some time, though.


I'm actually not that tech savvy. LOL

It's sad, really.

Thanks for the advice, though.


----------



## LDB (Oct 28, 2008)

I bought the Conan-Doyle because it included every Sherlock Holmes plus all the rest of his works in one volume indexed and ready to read that within less than a minute was readily available with no work, no fuss, no muss taking up only 1 spot on the homepage. For me that was well worth the $4.79 for it.


----------



## BambiB (Dec 22, 2008)

How hard is it to find a particular work within the composite?  Does the volume contain a TOC that lists all of the works and you can select through there?


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

BambiB said:


> How hard is it to find a particular work within the composite? Does the volume contain a TOC that lists all of the works and you can select through there?


Yes. That much I know. I downloaded a sample of one, and you can jump to the TOC. There it lists all the works with working links. You can simply scroll to the work you want, click beside it, and you are there.


----------



## BambiB (Dec 22, 2008)

mwvickers said:


> Yes. That much I know. I downloaded a sample of one, and you can jump to the TOC. There it lists all the works with working links. You can simply scroll to the work you want, click beside it, and you are there.


That sounds really cool. Thanks!


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

For those interested, below is the link to the Amazon store where they have the Mobile Reference Kindle books. There are pages of authors, including Dickens, Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Aristotle, and many others.

Most are priced around $4.79. Some are a little more, some are less.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=mobilereference


----------



## BambiB (Dec 22, 2008)

mwvickers said:


> For those interested, below is the link to the Amazon store where they have the Mobile Reference Kindle books. There are pages of authors, including Dickens, Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Aristotle, and many others.
> 
> Most are priced around $4.79. Some are a little more, some are less.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=mobilereference


Oohh...Thanks!


----------



## Sparkplug (Feb 13, 2009)

Just another opinion... I downloaded a collection from one of my favorite childhood authors (L.M. Montgomery) and was very impressed. Yes, I could have individually downloaded all 20 of her novels and hundreds of short stories on-line for free from freekindlebooks.org. However, these were formatted much better, the file much more compact, easier to navigate with the Table of Contents & the biggest plus was that all of these only take up one spot on my homepage.

But I think it's really only worth it if you want to read *all* of the author's works. If you only want to read one or two of their pieces, I think downloading it for free makes more sense.


----------



## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

mwvickers said:


> I'm actually not that tech savvy. LOL
> 
> It's sad, really.


 In that case, then the Mobile Reference stuff is probably a good deal. I hear their formatting is good, and it's certainly easier than the DIY method.


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

Sparkplug said:


> Just another opinion... I downloaded a collection from one of my favorite childhood authors (L.M. Montgomery) and was very impressed. Yes, I could have individually downloaded all 20 of her novels and hundreds of short stories on-line for free from freekindlebooks.org. However, these were formatted much better, the file much more compact, easier to navigate with the Table of Contents & the biggest plus was that all of these only take up one spot on my homepage.
> 
> But I think it's really only worth it if you want to read *all* of the author's works. If you only want to read one or two of their pieces, I think downloading it for free makes more sense.


Thanks for the input! I appreciate it.


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

I decided to get a few of the Mobile Reference editions.  I like them in every way but one:  The page turns seem a lot slower in those collections.  Anyone else experience this?


----------



## ogie287 (est. 1838) (Feb 5, 2009)

mwvickers said:


> For those interested, below is the link to the Amazon store where they have the Mobile Reference Kindle books. There are pages of authors, including Dickens, Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Melville, Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, O. Henry, Aristotle, and many others.
> 
> Most are priced around $4.79. Some are a little more, some are less.
> 
> http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=mobilereference


Thanks!

I just added half of those to my wish list...


----------



## Sparkplug (Feb 13, 2009)

mwvickers said:


> I decided to get a few of the Mobile Reference editions. I like them in every way but one: The page turns seem a lot slower in those collections. Anyone else experience this?


I noticed that -- at least it was turning a little bit slower, not "a lot." I'm thinking it might have something to do with how large the files are... is that plausible?


----------



## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

I have a few of these collections and really like them. I really like that they only take up one line on my homepage (that's already 30+ pages long.

Yes, I could do it myself, but $4.79 is a small price to pay for a bit of sanity. (Plus Kindleboards gets a little, and I can keep it on Amazon.)


----------



## ladyvolz (Dec 23, 2008)

I too have about 5 or 6 of the MobileReference collections on my kindle.  I had several of the novels already on my kindle from various places like Gutenberg, ManyBooks, etc., but discovered that having all the works of an author in ONE collection saved clutter on my kindle.  For me, 4.79 was a small price to pay for convenience, excellent formatting and the ease of moving around in the TOC.  I haven't notice the slower page turns though.


----------



## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

Not all of the Mobilereference volumes are created equally.

Both of these are horrible:

 

The Poe volume has no TOC, if I recall correctly.

And the movie book is just a bunch of plagiarized material from Wikipedia. Not what I''d call worthy of $10.

*CORRECTION:* I was mistaken about the Poe collection. It does have a TOC, but not everything is linkable in the sample version. Only what's contained in the actual sample is linked. The full version links to everything, from what I'm told.

I still stand by what I said about the movie book though. It is junk.


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

I have the Poe one.  I believe it has a working TOC now.  I only looked at it once so far.


----------



## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

mwvickers said:


> I have the Poe one. I believe it has a working TOC now. I only looked at it once so far.


It didn't in the sample, which I DLed only last week.


----------



## mwvickers (Jan 26, 2009)

CS said:


> It didn't in the sample, which I DLed only last week.


I think I downloaded Poe on Friday. Again, I only looked at it once, so I don't remember off the top of my head, but I'm almost positive the TOC is there and works.

It's possible that the sample didn't have a working one, or only worked for a few. When I downloaded the Shakespeare sample, only one or two plays and the sonnets had the working TOC, the rest were listed, but there was no working link.

It's also possible that I'm wrong, and that it doesn't have a working TOC, but I think I remember jumping straight to "The Raven." I couldn't have done that without a TOC link.


----------



## SusanCassidy (Nov 9, 2008)

A sample is not going to have the places to jump to for all the entries in the TOC.  If the story or poem is in the sample, then the link will work (if correctly constructed).  If the story or poem is in the part of the book not in the sample, the link will just sit there.  That's how links work.


----------



## CS (Nov 3, 2008)

SusanCassidy said:


> A sample is not going to have the places to jump to for all the entries in the TOC. If the story or poem is in the sample, then the link will work (if correctly constructed). If the story or poem is in the part of the book not in the sample, the link will just sit there. That's how links work.


Yep. I just looked at the sample again, and you're right, Susan.

That's a relief, at least.

Now I can buy the Poe Collection without worries. I was really disappointed when I thought it had a non-functioning TOC.

BTW, I corrected my original post.


----------



## r0b0d0c (Feb 16, 2009)

Glad to hear that others have had been generally pleased with the mobi collections - I've downloaded a couple, but haven't read much from them yet. 

For me, the biggest disadvantages are: 
1. hard to tell how far you are in the individual book
2. hard to find individual book titles, unless you know the author

Advantages:
1. although not free, the under-$5 price is close to it, for the size of the collected works
2. less clutter in my homepage, which is already 12 pages (including samples)
3. I'm finding titles of authors I like that I otherwise wouldn't have read

I'd sure like to hear more thoughts from other readers about these collections! I have another dozen or so authors' works that I'm considering!


----------



## Sparkplug (Feb 13, 2009)

r0b0d0c said:


> For me, the biggest disadvantages are:
> 1. hard to tell how far you are in the individual book


I agree with this -- for me, it's the only disadvantage to the Mobile Reference collections.


----------

