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Old 09-12-2010, 12:41 PM   #1
harryE123
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What is the best/cheapest store in the UK for epub?
Just looking for some heads up here. I am aware of blackwells and waterstones, but I was wondering whether there are any other players and if the sony store is as bad as it's said to be. And what about pricing? I am asking this because I am close to pulling the trigger on that sony 6" reader.

(one a sidenote if someone can explain to me how amazon u.k. keeps prices considerable lower than every other major player in printed books....)
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Old 09-12-2010, 01:11 PM   #2
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WH Smiths seems to be coming in cheapest in the UK when I go browsing for ePub.

(But of course Amazon is consistently the cheapest if you're happy to go for the Kindle edition instead.)

Other players are Books on Board, Kobo, and Foyles.

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Old 09-12-2010, 01:22 PM   #3
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Incidentally, looking at the Blackwells site, their fiction seems to be available as ADE ePub, but the reader they sell, the BeBook, appears to support mobi DRM but not ADE. A source of confusion, or have I read that wrong?

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Old 09-12-2010, 01:31 PM   #4
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Amazon should sell all e-book formats, not just their amz! Its like them saying 'oh we only sell books published by Harper Collins'!
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Old 09-12-2010, 02:49 PM   #5
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What I'd recommend you do is download "Kindle for PC", then buy books from Amazon, remove the DRM with the "skindle" program and convert to ePub with Calibre. Amazon are so very, very much cheaper than anyone else; why pay double (or more) the price at Waterstones?
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Old 09-12-2010, 03:10 PM   #6
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Or, just get a Kindle 3 and enjoy a very fine reader (with wifi), the cheapest bookstore in the UK (according to Graham, post 2), and no hassles breaking the DRM and translating into something the Sony eReader requires. If there's something unique in ePub from time-to-time, you can follow HarryT's advice on breaking ePub DRM (which is also trivial once you know how), and convert THOSE to .mobi for your Kindle.
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Old 09-12-2010, 03:29 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham View Post
Incidentally, looking at the Blackwells site, their fiction seems to be available as ADE ePub, but the reader they sell, the BeBook, appears to support mobi DRM but not ADE. A source of confusion, or have I read that wrong?

Graham
You've read it wrong (or perhaps they have it wrong). All the BeBook readers are ADE devices.
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Old 09-12-2010, 03:29 PM   #8
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Originally Posted by SensualPoet View Post
Or, just get a Kindle 3 and enjoy a very fine reader (with wifi), the cheapest bookstore in the UK (according to Graham, post 2), and no hassles breaking the DRM and translating into something the Sony eReader requires. If there's something unique in ePub from time-to-time, you can follow HarryT's advice on breaking ePub DRM (which is also trivial once you know how), and convert THOSE to .mobi for your Kindle.
... but bear in mind that UK libraries offer ADE DRM ePub which the Kindle doesn't support.

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Old 09-12-2010, 03:31 PM   #9
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Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
You've read it wrong (or perhaps they have it wrong). All the BeBook readers are ADE devices.
Looks like Blackwells have it wrong then:

http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/.../8717825261012

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Read any pdf*, mobi, lit*, epub*, html, txt, prc, fb2, jpg file and over 300.000 of free rss newsfeeds from your BeBook. Including Mobipocket Digital Rights Management support. (*non-drm)
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Old 09-12-2010, 03:35 PM   #10
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They could perhaps be talking about very old firmware on the BeBook One. BeBook switched from Mobi to ADE DRM a long, long time ago.
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Old 09-12-2010, 03:38 PM   #11
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Looks like Blackwells have it wrong then:
Yes. The BeBook One used to support DRMed MOBI, but they have not done so for at least a year. From (mybebook) Technical Specifications:
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Supported file formats: pdf (with or without drm), mobi (non drm only), prc (non drm only), epub (with or without drm), lit (non drm only), txt, fb2, doc, html, rtf, djvu, wol, ppt, mbp, chm, bmp, jpg, png, gif, tif, rar, zip, mp3.
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Old 09-12-2010, 05:03 PM   #12
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Thanks for the great replies guys and gals, much appreciated.

One of the reasons I opened this thread is to see if some prices are at least comparable, I hate to keep feeding the amazon monster (as well as the google monster) all the time for ideological reasons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT View Post
What I'd recommend you do is download "Kindle for PC", then buy books from Amazon, remove the DRM with the "skindle" program and convert to ePub with Calibre. Amazon are so very, very much cheaper than anyone else; why pay double (or more) the price at Waterstones?
Thanks Harry, is the price difference that big? Double? Wow...

@SensualPoet. Great nick btw. Hmmm, you 've got me thinking, my main thing with the sony's is that I can get books from libraries, plus I think the touchscreen should be better. Than said the kindle is really cheap, from what I ve read mobi is easily converted to epub and vice versa (although calibre is something of a dog on the mac), and I would miss the wifi in the sonies... Oh well, again decisions decisions decisions, I will probably toss a coin in the end.

//edit: Graham I think SP is saying that amazon might not handle drm epub, but without drm and mobi conversion it's fine.
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Old 09-12-2010, 06:12 PM   #13
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harryE - if you do want epubs, BooksonBoard has a UK site which, sometimes, offers a book cheaper than any of the other UK retailers I have come across. Also, ebooks.com, whilst a USA site, occasionally can sell a title to a UK resident and its prices can be good.

Overall, I find WH Smiths is my most frequent epub site but, since the opening of the Kindle UK operation, I'm with HarryT on what is the most sensible option to take (providing you have access to a pc).

Oh, and I have never had a problem with Calibre on my Mac. In fact, I prefer using my Mac and Calibre than my pc and Calibre.
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Old 09-12-2010, 06:32 PM   #14
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@church mouse. Thanks a lot for that! I am always on the look out for for smaller outfits with decent prices because I despise gargantuan monsters such as amazon. Of course I am guilty of taking the cheap way out with them often...

It's the interface of calibre that bothers me, but to be honest I 've not used it for any extended period of time. We are kind of spoilt on the mac side in terms of interface design as I am sure you know.

btw, why do I have to have access to a pc to use the kindle? I am sure I 've read sometime ago that there's kindle for mac?
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Old 09-13-2010, 02:40 AM   #15
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//edit: Graham I think SP is saying that amazon might not handle drm epub, but without drm and mobi conversion it's fine.
It's just that breaking DRM on a library book just feels particularly unethical to me. Much more so than breaking it on a purchased book.

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