Two Nook Household

[Catkraft1]

I would like to buy my husband a nook, I am tired of waiting to read mine.  Can I have two Nooks registered to the same account?

[icebike]

Yes.

Anything he buys will show up on your nook when you do a check for new b&N content, and vise versa.  

Great if you share the same tastes.

A second account costs no more. 

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Yes, but you don't want to. Here's what you want to do:

Have separate B&N accounts. That way you can each buy whatever books you want, archive whatever books you want, and (when B&N gets synchronization working) you won't be opening your books to the last page that the other person read. A B&N account should be personal, and you can have multiple devices (PC eReader software, iPhone, NOOK, etc.) all synchronized up through them.

To share B&N e-books, just copy them your from one NOOK to the other. Obviously, you'll need to hook the NOOKs to a computer, and copy into 'my documents' on the receiving NOOK. The first time that you open an e-book that the other person bought, your NOOK will ask for the name and credit card number used to buy that e-book. Enter that, and away you go. Your NOOK will remember the information and won't ask you again, not for that e-book nor for any other e-book bought on that name and credit card number. It's easy and clean.

Note: e-books bought in 'Secure eReader' format at Fictionwise and eReader.com work the same way. If they were bought with a name and/or credit card number that your NOOK hasn't seen before, you'll have to enter that name and credit card number just one time. This won't be a big deal, though, because you'll probably be using the same name/credit card number as at B&N, so your NOOK will probably already have that information.

You do want to share an Adobe account for Adobe Digital Editions. If you have multiple computers, activate them all with the same Adobe account. Authorize both of your NOOKs with that account. Now you can copy your Adobe EPUBs back and forth just fine. You can have up to 6 computers and 6 devices on one Adobe account.

If you open an account at the Sony Reader e-book store, you have to use the exact same e-mail that you used for the Adobe account. That means that you'll be sharing an account at the Sony store.

[mimiz]

How do you get two bn accounts setup on one computer.  My brother bought a nook for my mother and she doesnt have a computer.  I tried to set her up on my account but I dont want to share content

[bklvr896]

mimiz wrote:

How do you get two bn accounts setup on one computer.  My brother bought a nook for my mother and she doesnt have a computer.  I tried to set her up on my account but I dont want to share content

Log out of your account and then click on the sign-in button and use the create a new account option.  You'll either have to make sure each of you logs out of the site when you leave so the other can log in, or use different browsers, such as IE and Firefox, or IE and Google Chrome, etc.

Or, I suspect if you had separate login accounts on the computer (which you probably don't) you could use the same browser, but that I'm not sure about.

One other thing, you'll need to make sure you don't have the "remember me" type option set for either one of you either, unless, you use separate browsers,

[Fred67]

Can one not use this technique, then, to enforce their First Sale Doctrine rights and sell or give a book to someone else (admittedly in a limited fashion)?

So I send someone the file, via email for example, and give them my credit card number for them to be able to use it.  Now, of course, that requires a great deal of trust, but if it's my mom or dad, for example, then I wouldn't have a problem doing it (my brother, on the other hand, can go to... well... a very hot location).

I just want something to be completely clear before I pull the trigger and buy TWO nooks, that even with separate accounts, I can share books with my wife, even if we can't read them at the same time.

[icebike]

Fred67 wrote:

Can one not use this technique, then, to enforce their First Sale Doctrine rights and sell or give a book to someone else (admittedly in a limited fashion)?

So I send someone the file, via email for example, and give them my credit card number for them to be able to use it.  Now, of course, that requires a great deal of trust, but if it's my mom or dad, for example, then I wouldn't have a problem doing it (my brother, on the other hand, can go to... well... a very hot location).

I just want something to be completely clear before I pull the trigger and buy TWO nooks, that even with separate accounts, I can share books with my wife, even if we can't read them at the same time.

Some muddied waters in the above post.....

But yes, if you want to share books you download them to your computer and side load them to another nook, and key in your credit card when asked.

You can directly download to the nook ONLY from your own account.  

You can sideload books from any account.

You will be asked for the credit card info only once for each account.  

[Fred67]

This is excellent... I understand why B&N wouldn't want to promote this, as it might bother some publishers who want gestapo like control over content... but it had been clear to me that I could to this with Kindle 2.  My dilemma was that I liked the Nook hardware and other features, but sharing was important... now that I know I can share, getting a Nook over a Kindle is a no-brainer.

For the record, the real reason is I have two kids, 3 years apart in school, and the younger will have the same reading lists as the older.  I'll be "borrowing" one of them quite a bit, but if we get one, we need to get two, and I don't want to re-buy the same eBooks (something that wouldn't happen with physical books).

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Fred67 wrote:

For the record, the real reason is I have two kids, 3 years apart in school, and the younger will have the same reading lists as the older.  I'll be "borrowing" one of them quite a bit, but if we get one, we need to get two, and I don't want to re-buy the same eBooks (something that wouldn't happen with physical books).

As has been discussed in other threads, be aware that B&N's official policy is that the NOOK and B&N content is intended for use by adults. There are no "minor's accounts" and there are no "age-appropriate e-book stores".

Depending on the age of your children and your personal approach to such things, you might want to think about how you're going to limit what they can do with the NOOK.

Your best bet is probably to not "register" either NOOK with any B&N account, so that they can't buy anything on their own (with your credit card). Buy the e-books on your computer and then sideload them onto the NOOKs.

You could temporarily register a NOOK and buy and download the e-books wirelessly, then unregister it, but that seems to me to be more work. And the unregistering/reregistering process isn't guaranteed to preserve any B&N content already on the NOOK.

This won't cover everything; a kid with a browser can find all sorts of what you probably would consider to be inappropriate materials on the Web, including e-books, including free e-books, and I'll leave it to you to figure out how you want to handle that.

[Fred67]

I'm blessed with good kids... they would not browse or buy anything unless they had my permission, so it's not something I'm concerned about.

Besides... they're browsing the bookstore, not the web.  B&N is just covering it's ass; I doubt there's any content they would stumble across at the B&N site that would really bother me anyway.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

Fred67 wrote:

Besides... they're browsing the bookstore, not the web.  B&N is just covering it's ass; I doubt there's any content they would stumble across at the B&N site that would really bother me anyway.

[/me raises an eyebrow]

I guess it depends on what would bother you. For most American parents, the Harlequin Blaze titles would probably be across the line for youngsters. Some of the stuff published by Smashwords... oh dear.

Go stumble around the site a bit yourself and see what you think. In particular, check out the free e-books. It's not my place to say what you should and shouldn't let your kids see. But you should at least be informed about the variety of e-book subjects available on B&N.

[FrogAlum]

Fred67 wrote:

Can one not use this technique, then, to enforce their First Sale Doctrine rights and sell or give a book to someone else (admittedly in a limited fashion)?

So I send someone the file, via email for example, and give them my credit card number for them to be able to use it.  Now, of course, that requires a great deal of trust, but if it's my mom or dad, for example, then I wouldn't have a problem doing it (my brother, on the other hand, can go to... well... a very hot location).

I just want something to be completely clear before I pull the trigger and buy TWO nooks, that even with separate accounts, I can share books with my wife, even if we can't read them at the same time.

This actually works quite well. 

The good news is the CC number and name is all that is needed.  The average person (just in case your trust was misplaced)  cannot do anything with that info since you don't have to give them the exp date or security code.

[icebike]

FrogAlum wrote:

The good news is the CC number and name is all that is needed.  The average person (just in case your trust was misplaced)  cannot do anything with that info since you don't have to give them the exp date or security code.

And furthermore, unless I am mistaken, there is no way to get the nook to cough up that info other than via heroic measures.

So a parent could code that in on the first book they sideload for a child and not have to worry about it getting used for anything.

[FrogAlum]

icebike wrote:

FrogAlum wrote:

The good news is the CC number and name is all that is needed.  The average person (just in case your trust was misplaced)  cannot do anything with that info since you don't have to give them the exp date or security code.

And furthermore, unless I am mistaken, there is no way to get the nook to cough up that info other than via heroic measures.

So a parent could code that in on the first book they sideload for a child and not have to worry about it getting used for anything.

Exactly right...

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

icebike wrote:

unless I am mistaken, there is no way to get the nook to cough up that info other than via heroic measures.

I don't think even heroic measures will do it. The credit card number is used as part of a process to create an encryption key, then discarded. Only the key is retained, and there shouldn't be enough data in the encryption key to calculate back to the original input data.

Kind of like the password encryption in Unix.

[very-simple]

Doug_Pardee wrote:

I guess it depends on what would bother you. For most American parents, the Harlequin Blaze titles would probably be across the line for youngsters. Some of the stuff published by Smashwords... oh dear.

Go stumble around the site a bit yourself and see what you think. In particular, check out the free e-books. It's not my place to say what you should and shouldn't let your kids see. But you should at least be informed about the variety of e-book subjects available on B&N.

Man.  maybe my parents were too lenient with me, but I distinctly remember my friends and i all obsessively reading the VC Andrews books when I was in the 4th grade.  And I had read pretty much the entire Stephen King back catalog by the time I was in the 6th grade.  I was a voracious reader and would read pretty much anything I could get my hands on, and my parents encouraged this, even if some of the books weren't "age appropriate".   In fact, the only book I can ever remember my mother forbidding me from reading was American Psycho. Which I read years later and just didn't like in any event.  

But a straightforward Harelequin romance is probably a lot less damaging than some of the, ahem, familial relations going on in VC Andrews.  

[Fred67]

And yet you're a well adjusted person as an adult, right?

The kids won't buy anything (or download any free content) without my consent... they each have their own computers and it's the same way.  Will I have a problem in the future, like 3 or four years from now?  Maybe, but I'll worry about it then.

[very-simple]

yes, I like to think I'm a well adjusted person

granted, I'm a singleton by choice, but I have lots of friends, family, graduate degree from a good school, and (until the recession-based layoff I experienced) a great career (which will pick back up again soon, since I've been interviewing quite a bit recently as the economy seems to be getting back on track).  Reading VC Andrews as a child did not turn me into a serial killer.

[JustTrish]

FrogAlum wrote:

This actually works quite well. 

The good news is the CC number and name is all that is needed.  The average person (just in case your trust was misplaced)  cannot do anything with that info since you don't have to give them the exp date or security code.

Okay, quick question: what if the book was purchased with a gift card?  Am I going to keep them and sort out which book was purchased with which?  I told all my sons to give me B&N gift cards for Mother's Day, so now I have four!

[icebike]

JustTrish wrote:

Okay, quick question: what if the book was purchased with a gift card?  Am I going to keep them and sort out which book was purchased with which?  I told all my sons to give me B&N gift cards for Mother's Day, so now I have four!

It doesn't matter how the book was purchased.

Anytime you download (to your computer or to your nook) the book is encrypted with your DEFAULT credit card.  

You can purchase with different credit cards, gift cards, etc, but each book will be encrypted with whatever was the DEFAULT credit card in your account at the time you download it.  You enter that card number once and your nook creates a decryption key from it and remembers that key forever.  You won't be asked again.