Now that you’re done searching and browsing, it’s time to take the plunge and buy a book. As you’re browsing or searching, you’ll see a green button next to any book you can buy, marked with the price. If there’s no green button, then you’ve already bought the book, and you instead see a gray label with the word “Purchased” where the price would normally be.
Note
You can also preorder a book that hasn’t yet been released. If the book hasn’t been released yet, the word “Preorder” appears on the green button instead of the price.
You can buy the book by tapping the green button with the price on it anytime—but you don’t have to commit yet. Say you want more information before you’re ready to buy. Rather than tapping the green button, tap anywhere else in the book description. A screen appears with plenty of information about the book. It’s divided into three tabs:
Overview. Provides a good deal of information about the book, including customer ratings on a five-star scale (and the total number of people who have reviewed it), a lengthy description of the book, and buttons for getting a free sample or sharing the book. (For more details about sharing, see Sharing Your Reading.)
Down at the bottom of the screen, there’s a small up arrow. Tap it, and a screen rolls up showing you a list of the books that other purchasers of this book have bought, and a list of other books the author has written. Tap the down arrow, and the screen rolls back down.
Tip
If you think you may want to buy the book at some point but not just yet, add it to your NOOK wish list by tapping “Add to Wishlist” on the Overview Tab. You can get to the list at any point when you tap the My Account button in the upper-right corner of the Shop (Note). Keep in mind, though, that your NOOK’s wish list is separate from your wish list on the BN.com website. The BN.com wish list contains items that you can’t buy on your NOOK (paper-only books and paper-only newspapers and magazines), while the NOOK contains only items you can buy on the NOOK, which includes apps, not just books and periodicals.
Customer Reviews. Here’s where you can read the reviews. You can also rate each review as to how helpful it was, and report the review if you think something is fishy about it the author rating his own book, perhaps or if it contains material that violates B&N terms of conduct.
It can be tough sifting through the useful and useless reviews, so the NOOK has thoughtfully given you a tool to help find the useful ones. Toward the top of the screen there’s a Most Helpful drop-down menu that lets you view reviews starting with the most helpful, the most recent, the highest ratings, or the lowest ratings.
Editorial Reviews. Want to know what professional reviewers have said about the book? Tap this tab, and if there are any professional reviews, you’ll see them here.
Say you’ve gone through all this material and you’re still not quite sure you want to buy. You’re interested but not yet sold. Tap back over to the Overview tab, and tap Free Sample. You can then read a section of the book before deciding whether you want to shell out for it.
After a few moments the sample downloads, and you’ll see the word “New” on the book cover. To read the sample, tap the Read Sample button.
The book now also shows up on your Daily Shelf (The Daily Shelf) with the word “New” on the cover. Tap it to read the sample.
You can now read the book as you would normally. The difference, of course, is that you won’t be able to read the entire book. The other difference is that a Buy Now button appears on all the pages.
Time to buy the book. Whether you’re browsing a book and tap the green button, tap the green button on the Overview Tab, or tap Buy Now when you’re reading a sample, you’ll buy it essentially the same way, with some variations:
If you tap the green button when browsing or on the Overview tab, a Confirm button replaces the green price button.
If you tap Buy Now when reading a sample, you’ll get sent back to the Overview tab, where you can tap the green price button to buy.
When you tap to buy, what happens next depends upon whether you’ve customized the Shop (Shop). If you haven’t done any customization, and just left the Shop set up as is, then when you tap the Confirm button, the book downloads, and the credit card you had on file when you registered the NOOK is charged. If you’ve told the Shop to first ask you to enter your B&N account password before you buy anything, enter your password. Either way, your credit card is charged, the book downloads, and you can start reading. The book shows up on your Daily Shelf and in your Library.