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Old 10-25-2010, 10:16 PM   #256
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One wonders if the Astak engineers are distracted listening to Chopin's Piano Sonata No 2, the third movement?

http://www.superopera.com/mp3/therecital/r_chopin3.mp3

At some point, really, transparency is what most consumers want. What the heck is really up with the ereader and ebook store?
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Old 10-26-2010, 01:10 AM   #257
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... What the heck is really up with the ereader and ebook store?
I wouldn't bet on it being increasing customer interest.
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Old 10-26-2010, 08:42 AM   #258
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I wouldn't bet on it being increasing customer interest.
I agree!!! I reckon customer interest is dwindling.

Unfortunately I need to say that I am over it. The ebookstore opened up and ok, few little issues but it was there. Some time ago Robert mentioned plans for Australia which soon after I noticed when going to the ebookstore I was redirected to ezread.com.au and found all the ebooks in my local currency, and I thought "This is cool, I know exactly what they will cost me, GREAT!!". Then the site went back to the US-based pricing (away from ezread.com.au back to ezread.com). Then a little while ago the new revamped ebookstore was released and that was ok, but then from the 15th Oct (which I posted here on the forum) I find myself redirected to global.ezread.com everytime I went to ezread.com and was presented with the old website.

So some people (I assume all of the US) are able to access the new site, me here in Australia are back to being given the old one. Been like that now for 11 days. Are new ebooks being updated on the old site as well as the new? Not sure. Is there a new ebookstore or not??

Second, there is still no word at all of anticipated arrival of stock for the ereaders, nor any mention if international shipping will still happen. Christmas is coming up, strong Aussie dollar and we are planning on giving a few ereaders. New models are coming out for other manufacturers (I'm not asking for new models, I am asking to be able to access existing ones). No stock has been the case for close to 2 months now due to an apparent tech error. Once again, great product but my dollars are going *again* to someone who will sell me their products.

As a consumer I am kind of happy to 'hang' for a while, but this time delay is becoming a bit of a joke. I don't feel I am being unreasonable, essentially I wanted to buy a goods and services from a company, but they don't seem all that interested anymore. My 2 cents.
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Old 10-27-2010, 01:57 PM   #259
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I agree!!! I reckon customer interest is dwindling.

I find myself redirected to global.ezread.com everytime I went to ezread.com and was presented with the old website.
Right now, we are working on the IP block right now, and a coworker has just informed me oversea customers should be able see the redesign in a few days. We are also working on a deal with our wholesaler who is "touchy" about international transactions.


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Second, there is still no word at all of anticipated arrival of stock for the ereaders, nor any mention if international shipping will still happen.
Unfortunately, international or not, we still are unable to sell our eBook readers on Astak.com. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are legal reasons why we cannot be transparent about the "missing" eBook readers, but I can promise, it is hurting our company and we are dealing with this issue every day.
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Old 10-27-2010, 06:55 PM   #260
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Unfortunately, international or not, we still are unable to sell our eBook readers on Astak.com.
I wonder how long KFC would last if it was continually "out of chicken"?
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Old 10-27-2010, 07:35 PM   #261
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I wonder how long KFC would last if it was continually "out of chicken"?
KFC is a chicken restaurant. (For some values of "restaurant.") Astak is a tech company, mostly focused on security cameras & similar items; ebook readers are a small portion of its business.

Which means that the upper-end corporate decisions are being made by people who are used to long-term stable markets; "wire your house with cameras" is not a trendy Christmas gift, and people aren't prone to buying whichever version has the coolest jingle on the commercials this week. They've moved into a market they have the technical expertise for, but lack awareness of the market itself.

And their clumsiness is likely to kill one of the best ereaders available in the US. The other Jinke models don't seem to be sold here.
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Old 10-27-2010, 07:54 PM   #262
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Old 10-27-2010, 10:10 PM   #263
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KFC is a chicken restaurant. (For some values of "restaurant.") Astak is a tech company, mostly focused on security cameras & similar items; ebook readers are a small portion of its business.
Sure, split hairs if that makes you happy.

Astak, which doesn't even both to sell its product in its own store, also doesn't sell its product at its dedicated store theezreader.com -- which only sells ereaders. Except, it doesn't.

At least at KFC, when they are out of chicken, you can still buy ribs.

At least it links to ezread.com, so if you can't buy the reader, you can at least buy books. Like Megan McCain, the featured book, Dirty Sexy Politics, at $23.50. Course, it's $9.99 at Amazon and Kobo.

And while you are there ... paying 2.35 time MORE than any bookstores, you ae advised, by a display ad link to BUY an Astak ereader. Except, of course, you can't.
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Old 10-28-2010, 01:42 AM   #264
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Right now, we are working on the IP block right now, and a coworker has just informed me oversea customers should be able see the redesign in a few days. We are also working on a deal with our wholesaler who is "touchy" about international transactions.
Well just to help with that, tell them how wise it is for them to restrict international sales and how great a business plan they have, going from 7billion potential customers down to a measly 300million in just the US </sarcasm>.


All seriousness does this mean realistically and likely that international customers will not be able to buy from ezread.com in the future if the new supplier comes on board??

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Unfortunately, international or not, we still are unable to sell our eBook readers on Astak.com. As I mentioned in an earlier post, there are legal reasons why we cannot be transparent about the "missing" eBook readers, but I can promise, it is hurting our company and we are dealing with this issue every day.
I think I understand (initially you mentioned a tech error, but obviously this is not the case). Given the rapid price reduction and increase in functionality and support/ebookstore integration of all the new main ereaders on the market, going to be very hard to come back in and create market share again.

Jen I do need to ask, are you slowly moving away from having an Astak presence here on the forums? I ask as there is only the odd announcement here, everything seems to be predominately on facebook, like the winners for 2 weeks running of the competition for a 6" reader, and new competitions currently being run (I'm sure ereader news would get posted there too). I don't use facebook but curiosity got to me and I followed the link from ezread.com and was surprised by the activity.

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IP address used to take weeks due to the way DNS updated. Now it takes just a few days. I try to look on the bright side.
Nah, nothing to do with DNS (I don't think) I am just redirected to a virtual host (same IP address). Perhaps only certain subnets are transferred to the new site, all others are redirected???

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Sure, split hairs if that makes you happy.

Astak, which doesn't even both to sell its product in its own store, also doesn't sell its product at its dedicated store theezreader.com -- which only sells ereaders. Except, it doesn't.

At least at KFC, when they are out of chicken, you can still buy ribs.

At least it links to ezread.com, so if you can't buy the reader, you can at least buy books. Like Megan McCain, the featured book, Dirty Sexy Politics, at $23.50. Course, it's $9.99 at Amazon and Kobo.

And while you are there ... paying 2.35 time MORE than any bookstores, you ae advised, by a display ad link to BUY an Astak ereader. Except, of course, you can't.
Oh thanks, buy ribs you say? Not in Australia. Here it is chicken or chicken. Oh you can get vegetarian at KFC, just need to buy a burger first and remove the chicken patty

All seriousness, I can't get over that price difference you have indicated. You are just buying the ebook and not shares in the company with it? I feel uneasy buying from the ebookstore at this time, so I havent compared prices. It is frustrating, other ereader sellers can announce products and release dates (or expected date when out of stock). Anyhoo, it will either come right or it wont.
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Old 10-28-2010, 12:07 PM   #265
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I think I understand (initially you mentioned a tech error, but obviously this is not the case). Given the rapid price reduction and increase in functionality and support/ebookstore integration of all the new main ereaders on the market, going to be very hard to come back in and create market share again.

Jen I do need to ask, are you slowly moving away from having an Astak presence here on the forums? I ask as there is only the odd announcement here, everything seems to be predominately on facebook, like the winners for 2 weeks running of the competition for a 6" reader, and new competitions currently being run (I'm sure ereader news would get posted there too). I don't use facebook but curiosity got to me and I followed the link from ezread.com and was surprised by the activity.
To summarize my position here, I was essentially brought on as an intern initially to run the social media accounts for customer service, contests, books reviews, etc. I have already done 50 bestseller reviews posted (for now) on Facebook. I spend the entire day on Twitter and Facebook, discussing books, ebooks, self-publishing, and etc. My expertise and my knowledge is entirely book-related.

I was asked to take over the forums in Robert's absence, and my understanding of the position is to continually check for people who need to contact with our support team. I do not have a technical background, and most of the advice I relay comes directly from our techies in the next cubicle.

Now eBook pricing questions on our bookstore I can address. Like I said, only Kobo, B&N, Amazon, and Apple are large enough to take losses for every eBook they said. They are, in fact, taking losses on both their devices AND book stock to stay competitive.

My goal is to give users a "small bookstore" experience. Yes, you're temporarily going to be paying more. But any intern or staffer working at our eBookstore can talk to you for at LEAST three hours about the significance of hair-color in "Less Than Zero". I can recommend a "next favorite book" to any stingy reader. We are also buzzing with 10 weeks of (dare I say very easy to win) giveaways for readers. THIS is my job, and what I love. I do struggle with managing the forums because honestly, I don't understand what is being asked.

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Old 10-28-2010, 01:13 PM   #266
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My goal is to give users a "small bookstore" experience. Yes, you're temporarily going to be paying more. But any intern or staffer working at our eBookstore can talk to you for at LEAST three hours about the significance of hair-color in "Less Than Zero". I can recommend a "next favorite book" to any stingy reader.
I can deal with paying a bit more for more personalized service. (Two-and-a-half times more? No, but I wasn't going to pay $10 either, so that's pretty much a null issue for me. $6.50 is my current limit for novels; between Baen, Samhain and Smashwords, I'm not hurting for reading material.)

I don't expect to buy *anything* from ezread.com because I don't buy DRM, and the store is either entirely DRM'd, or doesn't bother to indicate what isn't. I don't buy from any store that requires ADE to read its books.

But if that weren't my hangup--there's no reviews on the site. No publisher info, no filesize, no date of publication. Every page has the same title. The advanced search engine doesn't tell you when you've picked an empty category, and you can only search for one at a time. Books don't show what category/ies they're sorted into. Can't search by price or format. Can't even open a book, then click on the author's name to buy more from the same person.

Individual guides to good books are a great thing... but you can't run an online international business by guiding each customer personally to what they want to buy. It's currently set up so people almost *must* interact with the staff to find what they want.

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I do struggle with managing the forums because honestly, I don't understand what is being asked.
1) When will the *hardware* be available again? ... and in the meantime, what's the holdup? Are they being phased out--should people who want an EZReader give up & go looking for something else? (I know these are questions you might not know the answers to, or be unable to answer. But that's a lot of what's being asked here.

2) Is Astak going to drop support here in favor of publicity on Facebook? (You've answered that: yes. They/you aren't pulling out entirely, but you're not planning on maintaining an active presence here, not planning on taking part in the discussions of "what makes a good ebook store" and "which PDFs work on what readers" threads. Which is fine; we just wanted to know. Ignore the grumbling; it isn't likely to have any notable impact on sales.) (Not maintaining a presence here is likely to have an impact; the number of complaints, and whether or not you respond directly to them, isn't.)

The rest is general device chatter that you're not expected to participate in. People stating what they like or don't like about their EZReaders aren't looking for official company interaction; support would be nice, but it's not like Amazon sends reps to random "My kindle broke and that sucks" or "which ebook reader should I buy?" threads around the web. *Not* providing that level of support is, at the moment, sharply noticeable because RobertB was involved in those threads--but that's not what's expected.
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Old 10-28-2010, 02:01 PM   #267
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I don't buy DRM, and the store is either entirely DRM'd, or doesn't bother to indicate what isn't.

But if that weren't my hangup--there's no reviews on the site. No publisher info, no filesize, no date of publication. Every page has the same title. The advanced search engine doesn't tell you when you've picked an empty category, and you can only search for one at a time. Books don't show what category/ies they're sorted into. Can't search by price or format. Can't even open a book, then click on the author's name to buy more from the same person.

(You've answered that: yes. They/you aren't pulling out entirely, but you're not planning on maintaining an active presence here, not planning on taking part in the discussions of "what makes a good ebook store" and "which PDFs work on what readers" threads.

.
I plan to do my physical best to maintain an active presence on the forum. I'm do want to let forum-goers better understand that my time is sorely divided, and my level of involvement will be sporadic. I don't want to create any more misunderstandings about what I'm trying to say, so that will be the end of that discussion about myself.

Your comments about the ebookstore are valuable because the new version has just literally launched. I will pass all of these directly onto our tech so we can fix it. Many of our books do not have DRM, but we need to be able to share that with buyers. If you do have reasons for not using our bookstore, we need to know so we can change it.
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Old 10-28-2010, 02:09 PM   #268
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As for information about "when our hardware will return", these are the pages where I addressed, sometimes briefly, the issue, and the legality of my saying anything about it:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...t=98025&page=2

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98025

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=94162&page=16

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...=94162&page=17
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Old 10-28-2010, 02:49 PM   #269
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I plan to do my physical best to maintain an active presence on the forum. I'm do want to let forum-goers better understand that my time is sorely divided, and my level of involvement will be sporadic.
Jen, ask for a pay raise. Or ask for an assistant. Seriously, you are doing a great job, and it's Astak's fault for not seeing how important their presence here is. Whatever internal disagreements your company and Robert had, he did an amazing job fostering a loyal community that other companies would die for to have.
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Old 10-28-2010, 04:40 PM   #270
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I do want to let forum-goers better understand that my time is sorely divided, and my level of involvement will be sporadic.
That's pretty much what I meant--that you're busy, mostly elsewhere, and while you intend to keep an eye on the Astak forum here, you don't expect to have the time for much more than that.

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Your comments about the ebookstore are valuable because the new version has just literally launched. I will pass all of these directly onto our tech so we can fix it. Many of our books do not have DRM, but we need to be able to share that with buyers. If you do have reasons for not using our bookstore, we need to know so we can change it.
Of all the ebookstores I've looked at, I like Fictionwise best. I can see all of an author's listings, or everything by a given publisher, including indie and web-only publishers. They tag books by length. They let me sort by price, format, and rating, and allow that to be ascending or descending. I can view only Multiformat books (which is good, 'cos that's all I'm interested in buying.)

One of the issues I have with the Ezread store is, "once I've identified a book I'm interested in, why would I buy it there, in one format, instead of at Fictionwise, which probably has it in several?" (I'm a particularly web-savvy ebook customer; I'm willing to check out the publisher's site to see if they have other versions. I'll go look at the author's blog to see if they offer discount coupons.)

Currently, there's an answer: I don't like FW's recent changes in policies and the removal of Micropay, so I'm not happy giving them money. I'm willing to pay a bit more (erm, less than $1) for an ebook on another site that I'm more happy with... if the shopping experience is comparably painless.

I don't think I can get ezread.com to load at home; it's exceedingly not dialup-friendly. (And my attitude towards that has always been, shrug, obviously I'm not the target customer.) And the search is poor, and browsing is basically useless. There's nothing on the site that makes me believe I'd be able to find books I'd enjoy reading.

I've got the weird sense that there's a huge support group over at Facebook, and if I spent time there, I'd be able to click over to the site occasionally and find books I liked. But I don't do Facebook (privacy concerns *and* not-dialup-friendly), so ezread is fairly opaque to me.
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