Least annoying "normal" (DRM) UK/US e-book shops to buy EPUB from (Thinking Alf)

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Diesel have fairly frequently been lambasted on this forum for having spectacularly terrible customer service. Might be something to bear in mind, just in case something does go wrong with an order.

They have? Guess I missed all of those posts. I can say that the few times I had to contact them over the years (3 times) all was satisfactory. Didn't know there supposed to be issues with them, are we talking B&N and Kobo level problems or?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

They have? Guess I missed all of those posts. I can say that the few times I had to contact them over the years (3 times) all was satisfactory. Didn't know there supposed to be issues with them, are we talking B&N and Kobo level problems or?

I've seen a few posts over the years where people, for whatever reason or another, have been unable to download the book they ordered, and been completely unable to get any help from customer service to resolve the issue.

[owly]

Haven't had any trouble so far.

[avid01]

From Kobo or Sony, which is the preferred EPUB shop?

Another book of my choice is only available in Amazon (I want EPUB), B&N (Their Alf process is not so friendly as for the others if I understand correctly), Sony and Kobo. That leaves me with Sony and Kobo.

Assuming same prices and regarding customer service, ease of use, the availability of samples (Amazon style)?

[Difflugia]

Originally Posted by avid01

From Kobo or Sony, which is the preferred EPUB shop?

Another book of my choice is only available in Amazon (I want EPUB), B&N (Their Alf process is not so friendly as for the others if I understand correctly), Sony and Kobo. That leaves me with Sony and Kobo.

Assuming same prices and regarding customer service, ease of use, the availability of samples (Amazon style)?

Based on your criteria, I'd humbly suggest that you give B&N another look; the Alf process is identical once you create your key. If you're unconvinced, find a free, but DRM-encumbered book at each of the stores and unencumber it.

The reason that I suggest B&N again is that you asked about samples and B&N's are the best, bar none. The samples are DRM-free epubs and downloadable without any extra software. In fact, even if I'm going to buy the book somewhere else, I almost always download the B&N sample first to check the formatting. Kobo samples must be read in Kobo software and Sony, as far as I can tell, doesn't offer them at all. Most other stores that offer samples, offer them through an online viewer only. Since I like to unzip the epubs and poke around under the hood (ugly HTML tends to lead to reader problems), that leaves B&N.

As far as ease of use goes, B&N is fine as long as you're willing to have a credit card number on file all the time, even for free books. That's actually my biggest beef with B&N and almost kept me from buying from them in the first place, but I decided that the other benefits were worth it. Kobo's search is terrible and when I buy at Kobo, I often find myself browsing at Amazon or B&N and then going to Kobo with the ISBN. Once you select your book, Kobo's and Sony's checkouts are about the same.

I know you specified equal prices, but the big benefit that Kobo and Sony share is coupons. Kobo throws coupons all over the place and if you watch Sony, you can get a 30%-40% off coupon every few months. I like Kobo's store the least, but I've probably spent more money there than at any other because of the deals. Sony has the nice feature where you can enter a coupon code before you search and only show books that are eligible for the discount.

One last downside to B&N that you may or may not ever notice is that B&N makes slight changes to the CSS files in the epubs. I've spot-checked a few and while I receive identical epubs from Sony and Kobo (and most other vendors), B&N makes a few changes (usually something like "15px" will become ".25in" or something). Google Books, by the way, changes the HTML files so much that it actually affects formatting and I won't buy from them for that reason.

I've (knock on wood) never had to avail myself of any of their customer service departments, so I can't comment there.

[Rbneader]

Originally Posted by avid01

From Kobo or Sony, which is the preferred EPUB shop?

Another book of my choice is only available in Amazon (I want EPUB), B&N (Their Alf process is not so friendly as for the others if I understand correctly), Sony and Kobo. That leaves me with Sony and Kobo.

Assuming same prices and regarding customer service, ease of use, the availability of samples (Amazon style)?

I actually like B&N. The samples are very easy to get and deal with, and the Alf process is very simple, especially if you use Calibre also. I've had a good experience with their books, no formatting issues that I could pin on the software or B&N customization.

Nook for PC software is decent and for some things is better than their website (it's definitely better organized that Kindle for PC, and Sony's Reader for PC seems like it would get unwieldy with large collections). I did have to contact customer service (via chat) once. They were friendly if definitely reading from a script, and solved the problem.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

They have? Guess I missed all of those posts. I can say that the few times I had to contact them over the years (3 times) all was satisfactory. Didn't know there supposed to be issues with them, are we talking B&N and Kobo level problems or?

I think we need to keep in mind that negative reports regarding vendors often do not represent the average user experience. For example, I have been buying from B&N for a couple of years now and have yet to have any problems with them.

--
Bill

[avid01]

In the meantime I just downloaded a DRM free sample from the Kobo store. Yeah, I rather deal with a dedicated software to download than with credit cards but maybe that's just me.

The interesting thing is that you get much higher quality pictures within the Epub than from the same book and Azw (I guess it was 3 as well) from the Kindle store. So Epub over Kindle definitely worths it, for me, even if it is more expensive by a whopping 3-5%!

Thanks for your feedback.

[rwillmer]

Originally Posted by avid01

Strange site.

I write
- First name, last name - it finds author
- Last name, first name - zero hits
- Word from author name, word from title - don't expect

Anyways, how it could be a good search engine if it doesn't find readily available titles on Amazon - even if I feed it with its desired format?

Can you give me examples which don't work? I'd like to check why your searches didn't work - they should!

If you're looking for a book that isn't in the database already, sometimes it takes some time to do the lookup - it depends on how many other folk are using the database and which sites you're interested in.

Give me some exact examples of a search which didn't work, and I'll check it out

Rachel