So yes - static factory methods - or, if it gets complex enough, a distinct factory object - are the right place to do work that would otherwise need to be done in the constructor. Use package-private constructors to enforce that people don't bypass them.
As a library vendor it gives you more flexibility, particularly if you make the method return an interface rather than the concrete type. Also it can make working with frameworks that call a constructor by reflection easier (you probably know if this is happening though). It's certainly worth separating the "inner" (i.e. the one that takes a FileReader) from the "outer" constructor so that you can call the inner one for testing (perhaps with a mock FileReader), but admittedly you can accomplish that equally well with a public constructor that calls a protected constructor.
For internal code I doubt it makes a lot of difference - you can always change it if you need it - but I prefer to use static factory methods everywhere for consistency.
