Wednesday, February 25th

I love eBooks.  Since I have an iPhone, I’ve chosen to read them there rather than going to the expense of purchasing one of those dedicated eBook readers such as the Kindle. 

I have had an eReader account for a number of years and generally have not had any problems with obtaining my purchases.  Recently I decided to try the Stanza application on the iPhone 3G, as I had heard so many nice things about it. After opening the application and navigating to the online catalog, I was pleased to notice several options from which to purchase reading material.  One of them is Fictionwise, which I understand is also eReader.com.  Since I had an eReader account already established, I thought I would use that to log in and make further purchases.  Doesn’t work that way, you have to create another account specifically for this Stanza/Fictionwise combo.  No problem, I did just that and went to purchase my first book: Getting Things Done, by David Allen, at a price of $15.00.  That’s where the problem comes in.

Fictionwise won’t let me download the book!! I have tried both with my iPhone, where I get a database error from the website, and from my web browser, which tells me a valid credit card is not registered, which must be done in order to generate an unlock code for the book.  Obviously, since I’ve made the purchase, I DO have a valid card on file. 

Just for grins, I entered my eReader.com registration information from my iPhone, and yep, all the purchases I have made during my 8 year membership are there.  I was able to download them without problems.  I closed out of  there, re-established my connection to Fictionwise and entered my new login, again attempting to download the aforementioned book.  Still no luck.  To make sure the problem wasn’t with the Stanza reader, I went to Books On Board and successfully purchased a copy of Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer.  (At a really great price of $5.84!!)

As you have probably surmised from the title of my purchase, I am interested in effective time management.  Since Monday afternoon, I have attempted this download several times and written more than one email to Fictionwise, who has yet to respond.  I wonder how long this is going to take to move from my Inbox to the Done list???  In the meantime, I’m dumping Fictionwise and shopping Books On Board.