Kobobooks.com suggestion

J. Strnad · 10-03-2010, 12:22 PM

Longer samples!

Sometimes all we get is "Openers" and no actual sample of the book itself.

I won't buy any book, even if the author is known to me, without sampling, so a sample with no sample is an automatic no-sale to me.

For example, I tried to sample The Chamber of Ten and got only "praise for..." blurbs for previous books by the author.

Thinking this might be a limitation put onto the ebook by the publisher, I went to Amazon to check it out, downloaded their sample to my Kindle, and immediately began reading the first chapter.

p_a_smith · 10-03-2010, 01:17 PM

Shopping Cart.

I usually buy multiple books at a time to load onto my kobo. It is a real pain to have to check them out one at a time...

tubemonkey · 10-03-2010, 01:45 PM

I was sampling a book the other day (forgot where) and it allowed me 23 pages. Not bad until I realized it was counting the cover, TOC, intros, etc. By the time I actually got to the first page of the story itself, I had already lost 11 pages.

Sigh...

peitsao · 10-03-2010, 02:13 PM

Same here--not enough of first chapter to tell me if the book is any good. That's why I never buy Sony ebooks--they are so far behind all the others in this regard.

SensualPoet · 10-03-2010, 02:27 PM

Absolutely. Logical sample -- first chapter always seems a good minimum start. An "advanced" search option. The ability for readers (esp. verified purchase readers) to post comments about titles. Start building out a recommendation engine; esp. on that learns from collective users and your own choices. Netflix and Amazon do this really well; Kobo should too.

leighisme · 10-03-2010, 02:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SensualPoet

The ability for readers (esp. verified purchase readers) to post comments about titles.

That would be perfect. A star rating isn't enough for me to decide to buy a title. I end up reading the reviews on Amazon a lot.

taming · 10-03-2010, 02:37 PM

There is a "comments" feature which could definitely be for short reviews, but it surely is buried. I seem to be able to see comments/leave a comment if the book is in my library--either because I have purchased it, or if I click to add it to my library without purchase. I then click on the library title, which returns a page with the commenting feature.

I would very much like the comments option to be displayed earlier--on the page with the book's description and for the comments to be available to me without adding the book to my library. Renaming it something like "reader reviews" would make a whole lot of sense.

terraskye · 10-03-2010, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by p_a_smith

Shopping Cart.

I usually buy multiple books at a time to load onto my kobo. It is a real pain to have to check them out one at a time...

I second or third a shopping cart!!

Duiker · 10-08-2010, 09:40 AM

What kills me is when they give you the first 5-10 pages then skip to page 200 or something. Who would want to read any part of the book in the middle? Do they want to give away what's going on in the book? Will that persuade you to buy? Seems silly. Just give me the whole first chapter.

SensualPoet · 10-09-2010, 12:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by taming

There is a "comments" feature which could definitely be for short reviews, but it surely is buried. I seem to be able to see comments/leave a comment if the book is in my library--either because I have purchased it, or if I click to add it to my library without purchase. I then click on the library title, which returns a page with the commenting feature.

I would very much like the comments option to be displayed earlier--on the page with the book's description and for the comments to be available to me without adding the book to my library. Renaming it something like "reader reviews" would make a whole lot of sense.

So, I tried this. And, yes, without your help I'd never have noticed this.

Comments are actually tied, not to the book, but to the chapter.

I commented when the bookmark happened to be at chapter 10 ... who will ever see that?

I think I stand by my original post: kobobooks should add (verified) customer and anyone else to add comments tied to specific titles.

taming · 10-09-2010, 01:05 PM

The comment feature is fairly new. A few weeks back I noticed that the site looked horrible for about 30 minutes. It seems that they were part way through a big change and had not yet loaded the new stylesheets.

I guess I had not really thought about there being a website development team that is also making incremental changes. I wish we knew what their vision for the future might look like. I'm guessing they are working madly on the shopping cart and bringing new country/currency versions of the site up, but, as I said, even that is a guess.

PeterT · 10-09-2010, 05:38 PM

If you look at the Chapters web site, it has a very similar look to the KoboBooks site; probably the same developers but it DOES have a shopping cart!

taming · 10-09-2010, 06:16 PM

The interesting thing (to me) is that Chapters just completed a redesign and it looks way more like Kobo than it did 10 days ago. Kobo started as a Chapters-Indigo project (shortread? shortbooks, shortbread?), so they undoubtedly had the same development team back then.

Warning Wild Speculation One possibility would be for Kobo and Chapters Indigo to share the same bookreview feature and the same shopping cart scheme--not that you would necessarily be able to have Chapters and Kobo books in the same cart at the same time, but rather that the content management systems for both were, urmmm, more cooperative. Chapters owns 58% of Kobo. There are undoubtedly many factors relating to how they relate to each other that we are clueless about. That being said, from what I can tell Chapters-Kobo has occasionally developed a feature that then was adapted for the eBook and tree book vendors (for example Borders) with whom they partner.

Somewhat less speculative: I just spent some time on the redesigned Chapters store. When I clicked on a book cover, in the ebook section, it said that using Chapters Indigo gift cards for ebooks was "coming soon." There are review links in the ebook listings, but they do not appear to be working. I assume the presence of the link means that that people who want to use Chapters-Indigo as the front end of their Kobo book buying will at some point be able to easily read and post to the reviews on the CI site.

10-03-2010, 12:22 PM	#1
J. Strnad Guru Posts: 915 Karma: 3537194 Join Date: Feb 2009 Device: Kobo, Kindle 3, Paperwhite	Kobobooks.com suggestion Longer samples! Sometimes all we get is "Openers" and no actual sample of the book itself. I won't buy any book, even if the author is known to me, without sampling, so a sample with no sample is an automatic no-sale to me. For example, I tried to sample The Chamber of Ten and got only "praise for..." blurbs for previous books by the author. Thinking this might be a limitation put onto the ebook by the publisher, I went to Amazon to check it out, downloaded their sample to my Kindle, and immediately began reading the first chapter.

10-09-2010, 06:16 PM	#13
taming Trying for calm & polite Posts: 4,012 Karma: 9455193 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Mostly in Canada Device: kobo original, WiFI, Touch, Glo, and Aura	The interesting thing (to me) is that Chapters just completed a redesign and it looks way more like Kobo than it did 10 days ago. Kobo started as a Chapters-Indigo project (shortread? shortbooks, shortbread?), so they undoubtedly had the same development team back then. Warning Wild Speculation One possibility would be for Kobo and Chapters Indigo to share the same bookreview feature and the same shopping cart scheme--not that you would necessarily be able to have Chapters and Kobo books in the same cart at the same time, but rather that the content management systems for both were, urmmm, more cooperative. Chapters owns 58% of Kobo. There are undoubtedly many factors relating to how they relate to each other that we are clueless about. That being said, from what I can tell Chapters-Kobo has occasionally developed a feature that then was adapted for the eBook and tree book vendors (for example Borders) with whom they partner. Somewhat less speculative: I just spent some time on the redesigned Chapters store. When I clicked on a book cover, in the ebook section, it said that using Chapters Indigo gift cards for ebooks was "coming soon." There are review links in the ebook listings, but they do not appear to be working. I assume the presence of the link means that that people who want to use Chapters-Indigo as the front end of their Kobo book buying will at some point be able to easily read and post to the reviews on the CI site. Last edited by taming; 10-10-2010 at 05:40 AM. Reason: another visit to CI newly designed site

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10-03-2010, 01:17 PM	#2
p_a_smith Me, Myself, but not I Posts: 161 Karma: 228652 Join Date: Aug 2010 Device: Kobo Original, Acer 200, Asus FHD, Kobo Touch	Shopping Cart. I usually buy multiple books at a time to load onto my kobo. It is a real pain to have to check them out one at a time...

10-03-2010, 01:45 PM	#3
tubemonkey monkey on the fringe Posts: 45,476 Karma: 158151390 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Seattle Metro Device: Moto E6, Echo Show	I was sampling a book the other day (forgot where) and it allowed me 23 pages. Not bad until I realized it was counting the cover, TOC, intros, etc. By the time I actually got to the first page of the story itself, I had already lost 11 pages. Sigh...

10-03-2010, 02:13 PM	#4
peitsao Addict Posts: 211 Karma: 32760 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Allegheny Mountains Device: Kobo mini, PW3,NookST	Same here--not enough of first chapter to tell me if the book is any good. That's why I never buy Sony ebooks--they are so far behind all the others in this regard.

10-03-2010, 02:27 PM	#5
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	Absolutely. Logical sample -- first chapter always seems a good minimum start. An "advanced" search option. The ability for readers (esp. verified purchase readers) to post comments about titles. Start building out a recommendation engine; esp. on that learns from collective users and your own choices. Netflix and Amazon do this really well; Kobo should too.

10-03-2010, 02:37 PM	#7
taming Trying for calm & polite Posts: 4,012 Karma: 9455193 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Mostly in Canada Device: kobo original, WiFI, Touch, Glo, and Aura	There is a "comments" feature which could definitely be for short reviews, but it surely is buried. I seem to be able to see comments/leave a comment if the book is in my library--either because I have purchased it, or if I click to add it to my library without purchase. I then click on the library title, which returns a page with the commenting feature. I would very much like the comments option to be displayed earlier--on the page with the book's description and for the comments to be available to me without adding the book to my library. Renaming it something like "reader reviews" would make a whole lot of sense.

10-08-2010, 09:40 AM	#9
Duiker Addict Posts: 258 Karma: 30680 Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Toronto, Canada Device: Kindle Paperwhite	What kills me is when they give you the first 5-10 pages then skip to page 200 or something. Who would want to read any part of the book in the middle? Do they want to give away what's going on in the book? Will that persuade you to buy? Seems silly. Just give me the whole first chapter.

10-09-2010, 01:05 PM	#11
taming Trying for calm & polite Posts: 4,012 Karma: 9455193 Join Date: May 2010 Location: Mostly in Canada Device: kobo original, WiFI, Touch, Glo, and Aura	The comment feature is fairly new. A few weeks back I noticed that the site looked horrible for about 30 minutes. It seems that they were part way through a big change and had not yet loaded the new stylesheets. I guess I had not really thought about there being a website development team that is also making incremental changes. I wish we knew what their vision for the future might look like. I'm guessing they are working madly on the shopping cart and bringing new country/currency versions of the site up, but, as I said, even that is a guess.

10-09-2010, 05:38 PM	#12
PeterT Grand Sorcerer Posts: 12,157 Karma: 73448616 Join Date: Nov 2007 Location: Toronto Device: Nexus 7, Clara, Touch, Tolino EPOS	If you look at the Chapters web site, it has a very similar look to the KoboBooks site; probably the same developers but it DOES have a shopping cart!

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