I usually buy my eBooks from Mobipocket. In the last few weeks when I tried to order new release books I got the message that the books were deleted from my cart because of my domicile being Germany (Even so I live in Switzerland and all my data points to Switzerland).

Two books where this happened are
Orphan's Alliance
Galactic Corps

The same books can be bought from other online shops without a problem.
I never had a similar problem when ordering a paper book from amazon.

I can't imagine a reason for this new policy. I think there will be no distibutor for those books (in English) in Switzerland so I see no problem if I buy the eBook.

I hope the other online shops will not follow mobipockets example

well that is rather annoying. and it sheds new light on this (http://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=31648) thread.

I really would recommend not buying directly from Mobipocket. They act as "wholesalers" for all the other Mobi stores, and are generally more expensive. Plus, for those of us who live in the EU (which I know doesn't apply to other original poster, but it's still worth mentioning) they charge VAT, which makes then even more expensive!

Stores like "BooksOnBoard" and "Fictionwise" generally sell the same books that Mobipocket do, but at lower prices (and no VAT!)

I tried it and the same thing happened to me, coincidently last night I bought Star Strike and Galactic Corps (Book 1 and 2 of a trilogy) from fictionwise with no problems :chinscratch:

I tried it and the same thing happened to me, coincidently last night I bought Star Strike and Galactic Corps (Book 1 and 2 of a trilogy) from fictionwise with no problems :chinscratch:

That's exactly what I did. But I hope fictionwise will not be presured into starting the same policy by publishers

I had the same issue last night when I tried to purchase ebooks from Mobipocket. It binned several books I had selected on the grounds that the books are not available in MY country (UK) so I couldn't purchase them !!

I found a great website www.diesel-ebooks.com which discounts many books, checkout is hassle free and great selection of ebooks and prices to boo. I will no longer purchase direct from Mobipocket, prices higher, Vat for EU buyers.

Hope this helps.

This happened to me also. As Harry suggests, I generally use sites like FictionWise and CyberRead, but for some reason a book I wanted was only available on MobiPocket.com.

I didn't read the fine print of the book description, and when I wanted to check out it gave me the message about removing it from my cart because of my location. Just for kicks I went and changed my registered location and it allowed my to buy the book, so depending on the website and how strict they really are, this may be one solution to the problem... :2thumbsup

This whole thing is getting more and more confusing. Since my problems with Mobipocket I switch to fictionwise for purchasing ebooks in the mobipocket format. Yesterday I saw that the new Starfist Recon novel is available and wanted to buy it. Strangely on fictionwise the book is only available in Secure eReader and Microsoft Reader format, while on Mobipocket the book is available in Mobipocket format (and they sell it to Europe). I also checked cyberread mentioned in a posting in this thread and there it's available only in Mobipocket format.
I would have expected that if a book is published in a certain format, it would be available in this format in all online store which nomally sell this format.

Yes, buying books in Europe is becoming very awkward, what with the formats and the location issues. Just changing your location does work on occasions & on other, some sites decide your credit card address is your location.

By the way, www.iliadreader.co.uk sell ebooks (mobi only) and do have prices cheaper than some other sites on occasion, but you do have to know what you want as their website isn't the easiest to find a book...

I would have expected that if a book is published in a certain format, it would be available in this format in all online store which nomally sell this format.

The FictionWise store does not appear to be able to handle the situation where different formats cost different amounts of money, as can be the case where they come from different suppliers; I think that's why formats are sometimes "missing" from FW. When that's the case, I generally go to BoB - their store can handle varying prices across formats, and the book's generally available from there in those situations.

From the FW mailing list:

Each and every week we work hard to release hundreds of titles in
encrypted formats and 13 unencrypted formats. No other ebook retailer
does this ... it takes a lot of effort. Something went wrong this week
with Mobi titles. We're trying to get that fixed now but with
Thanksgiving, it probably will not happen today. I think we have a
shot to fix it before the huge storewide sale is over however. We're
working on it.


... so that's probably why some newly-released books aren't currently there in Mobi format.

From the FW mailing list:



... so that's probably why some newly-released books aren't currently there in Mobi format.

I checked and the book I was originally lookimg for is now available in mobipocket format at fictionwise. So it was just a temporary Problem