Disappearing books at eReader.com

[rleguillow]

Cue the ghosts and creepy music.

This morning, during a brief break from work, I went to ereader.com, logged in and searched for Charlaine Harris. A bunch of books were in the results - a few anthologies, what appeared to be all of her Sookie Stackhouse series and several others, including the one I wanted to buy. I put it into my cart and then had to go back to work before I could finish the transaction.

So, a few minutes ago, work completed, I went back to finish buying that book. Nothing in my cart and I was no longer logged in. I figured it timed out. So I logged back in, checked the cart (empty) and again searched for Charlaine Harris. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

Puzzled, and figuring there had to be a glitch somewhere, I logged out, closed my browser, waited a minute and tried again - log in, search... nothing.

What is up with that? Does anyone know of (or has anyone heard rumours about) books being removed from eReader.com?


LATER: I found their contact point and have sent them the above info, asking what happened. I'll post their reply, if they send one.

[Graham]

It's likely to be the same as on the other sites. The 5 major publishers who have enforced an agency pricing deal will have removed their titles while the new infrastructure is put in place to support the new pricing which comes into effect tomorrow.

[rleguillow]

I received the following response from... Fictionwise!

Hello,

Due to industry changes, our content suppliers are currently unable to offer certain titles from several large publishers. We are working with our content partners to resolve this.

Best Regards,

Ted
eReader.com Support Team

I see a pattern here, since there are a couple of posts here in the MR forums regarding disappearing books at Fictionwise as well.

I also see that there is not enough competition in the ebook selling field, as there is not enough competition in so many things, which leads to unhappy consumers and fat cat companies.

Sigh.

Well, because I was able to remove the DRM from the books I purchased at eReader.com, so I could read them on whatever reader I happen to own, I was feeling not TOO bad buying from them. Looks like they'll lose my business too. Sure hope Baen doesn't go to hell with the rest of 'em, they really are my go-to ebook store, now. I've been doing most of my purchasing from them, and now it looks like it will be all of my purchasing. Really, what do these fools think they are doing? How to win customers - limit the use of the product you sell, price it in strange and wonderful ways, periodically reach out and take it back, refuse to carry an entire series (let's sell books 1-3, skip 4, sell 5, skip 6 and 7...), force folks to buy the book over and over each time the hardware gets upgraded...I may have to reconsider the dark side.

[Graham]

It's not the fault of eReader.com or Fictionwise; this affects all the sellers. See the threads here on "agency pricing".

Graham

[rleguillow]

Well, I may have just made a fool of myself. I have come to think that the government is not much use to anyone except Big Corporations. Just the same, after reading more about agency pricing, reading the post on the BooksOnBoard website, and seeing the reports about the removal of books from the ebook seller sites, I got mad.

I sent an email to the US Department of Justice, asking that they look into this, since it does appear to be price fixing, and my understanding is that price fixing is illegal.

I don't have any hope of anything happening, but really - if we allow Them to just roll over us without even voicing a protest, we will be flattened. I don't expect Eric Holder reads MR forums...

[Graham]

My concern here is that your reaction was a very reasonable one, and likely to be repeated for many customers, and that it will damage sites like Fictionwise.

For me, Fictionwise have always been the good guys.

Graham

[rleguillow]

Can't really argue with that, Graham, now that I've gotten more information on the subject. My email to the DOJ listed the 5 publishers - mentioned the sellers a little too, because I copied some info from BoB (that listed the publishers) but not as culprits in this.

I don't know what my price limit is. I have not tested it. I usually buy older books, and I can't remember ever spending more than $10 on ebooks. I do buy more books from Baen than from Fictionwise or eReader.com, and Baen keeps their prices low. Will they continue to do that? I hope so!

Whether or not these publishers are actually doing something illegal, I should hope that if they are ridiculous with their pricing, we make that clear to them by withholding our dollars. It is unfortunate that some sellers may be hurt by that. But... hardnosed as it sounds, if all the sellers had gotten together as the 5 publishers have done, and refused to play the publisher's game, then perhaps this would not be happening.

Pigs fly too.

[pitancsu]

I had to restore my iPhone recently and now can not download any of the content from the "big 5" Has anyone had word on if they will even allow downloading of content already purchased?

[Marseille]

Good info. Half my wishlist got wiped out and I was wondering why.

I've been thinking of leaving eReader for a while now. They can't really decide on a pricing structure and I've seen a number of announced changes get reversed without any notice. Remember when they reduced the max price for all books to something like $12? It really ticked me off when they undid that with no announcement because they had presented the change as though it was permanent.

And frankly, they should have sent out information about this change so we knew it was coming and what had happened. By not communicating, they probably cost themselves customers by people who thought fictionwise might be losing it's ability to contract for a large library in the face competition.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by Graham

My concern here is that your reaction was a very reasonable one, and likely to be repeated for many customers, and that it will damage sites like Fictionwise.

For me, Fictionwise have always been the good guys.

Graham

Sorry, fictionwise, and ereader.com are not good guys. I started buying from ereader.com, when it was peanut press, and I used a palm to read on. A month or so ago, I tried getting several books on my iPad, and was unable to. Error message about territorial location. I contacted support, then, and yesterday, and they are "working on it.". Right. They also sent me part of the terms of use, and basically you have no rights and they have no obligations.

Yesterday, I went through my account and downloaded everything I could. Out of 384 books purchased, I was unable to download about 40 books. I have been ripped off. Besides that, even if I have books on the drive there is no easy way to get them onto the iPad unless via their servers.

I will never buy a book from this place again. By conservative estimate, I have spent slightly less than $6,000 there. Hope they realize what it will do to their bottom line if a lot of once loyal customers vote no with their wallets like I did.

I have noticed over the y.ears that there are a small number of users here that post venomous messages about book piracy. But I haven' t seen any of these users posting anything about this situation. Sorry,, but as for these 40 or so books I bought and cannot read, I will replace them with ebooks' for free.

This idiocy, and the pricing borne of greed is driving readers to consider piracy, and I would think it is helping amazon's Kindle business. Why would I pay more for an ebook than I have to, and I can usually these days buy the book at amazon in kindle format for half the price that ereader charges.

IMHO, there had better be some sanity about prices and service, or publishers will kill the ebook market. I buy ebooks for 2 reasons, convenience and reduced space necessary to store. In the future, the possibility that any company might prevent me, like ereader has, from accessing books I paid for, will certainly factor into my buying decision. I am very disappointed in that company.
Years ago, the people that own tv guide released an updated version. Of the rocketbook reader, the reb 1100. It was an excellent device, but their greed and outrageous prices killed their market. I can see this happening all over again.....

[J. Strnad]

GoldStar really blew it with the REB 1100. I had high hopes for them at first, since they brought a lot of capitalization to the product, and they seemed to understand spending money to make money.

After all, they invented VCR+ which let you program your VCR by entering a code number in the TV schedule. But VCR manufacturers wouldn't pay to add VCR+ to their machines because no one ran the code numbers in their TV listings. So, GoldStar bought TV Guide! Once TV Guide was running the numbers, manufacturers started licensing VCR+ for their machines.

GoldStar seemed to do all it could to kill the RocketReader/REB 1100 though. First, it took a catchy name and replaced it with something incredibly boring. It cheapened the display and raised the price of the reader. Then it killed the free RocketReader library that got people interested in the device in the first place. Finally it insisted on controlling the distribution of content and charged too much for the ebooks. A perfect recipe for disaster.

I'm sorry about your experience losing all of those books! It's an object lesson for others, though, about trusting anyone...Amazon, B&N, Kobo...to keep your library for you. Download and back up is the only way to go.

[wgrimm]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

GoldStar really blew it with the REB 1100.

GoldStar seemed to do all it could to kill the RocketReader/REB 1100 though. First, it took a catchy name and replaced it with something incredibly boring. It cheapened the display and raised the price of the reader. Then it killed the free RocketReader library that got people interested in the device in the first place. Finally it insisted on controlling the distribution of content and charged too much for the ebooks. A perfect recipe for disaster.

I'm sorry about your experience losing all of those books! It's an object lesson for others, though, about trusting anyone...Amazon, B&N, Kobo...to keep your library for you. Download and back up is the only way to go.

Yeah, there were a few good things about the reb, like memory card support updated and the case was easier to hold, but overall it was worse. And they did not include the rocketbook dock with the reb.

I am very disappointed in ereader.com. I have bought books from them, 384 total, since they sold ebooks for the palm pilot. Their "terms of disservice" really suck, since the technologies have changed and it is difficult if not impossible to get books into their reading software without using their servers.