It all started because I just have too many eBooks, and too many eBook readers on my iPhone.

eReader.  Stanza.  Kindle.  B&N eReader. Wattpad.  Kobo.  Eucalyptus.  You get the picture.  And they don’t share information between them.  You can’t load your freeware Wattpad books on your eReader software, for example, without jumping through the hoops of converting it yourself with their eBook Studio software.

It was the B&N software that pushed me over the edge.  The fact that those splash pages for the two different eReaders for the iPhone–B&N on the left, and Fictionwise on the right–look very similar isn’t that big a deal.  Hell, they’re only splash pages.

But we know B&N bought Fictionwise early last year.  And to my eye, the software for the two eReaders looks damn near identical:

They also have very similar options, similar downloading schemes, and use the same formats.  It seems clear to my nerdly soul that the good folks at B&N just updated and tweaked the Fictionwise software a bit and called it their own.

So why am I tweaked?  Who cares, right?

Well, first of all, I’m tired of having too many readers, and since the software is so similar, it would seem to be an easy task to load the Fictionwise library into the B&N reader, right?  Nuh uh. And second of all, B&N has included this wonderful feature where you can highlight a term or phrase and then either look it up in a dictionary, in google, or in Wikipedia!

And I can’t begin to tell you how cool that is, especially if you’re reading, say, Shōgun, and really want to know where the Izu peninsula is.  Or what a particular Japanese word really means. Or whatever.  And best of all, the software opens Google and Wikipedia as sub-processes; in other words, the eReader doesn’t close down and then open Safari and perform a search; it does the search right there.  When you quit out of Wikipedia or Google, you’re right back in your book where you left off.

I know I’m gushing here, but this is the kind of thing I always wanted an eBook for.  Hell, late last year I requested this very same feature from the good folks at Fictionwise!

So now I’m burning to load my Fictionwise library onto my B&N eReader software.  And here’s where it gets tricky.  Follow along with me:

• You can read your Fictionwise library with your B&N software on the PC
• You can upload your Fictionwise library to the Nook over the hardwire (although it’s not a very clean copy, I’m told)
• You cannot upload your Fictionwise library to your B&N software on the iPhone

But I’m a nerd.  Not a true nerd who can break into NORAD with a penny-whistle, like Cap’n Crunch, but still–nerdly.  I haven’t succeeded yet, but if you want to get as far as I have and then help me over the final hump, well then, bless you.

Next up:  What I’ve tried to make it work.