what DON'T you want ?

[sic]

hi

a Getting Real style question to authors and readers of MobileRead:
what don't you want from an ideal ebook store?

- What are features of the Connect store, Mobipocket or any other ebook selling website that you don't use?
- What services of self publishing companies such as Lulu.com or iUniverse.com that you don't care about?

[Laurens]

As far as I'm concerned they could do without prices. That feature really bothers me.

[NatCh]

I hadn't thought about it before, but I have to agree with Laurens on this one.

Seriously, though (speaking of ConnStore, specifically), there aren't really enough features yet for any of them to be superfluous, to me, anyway. There are a number of approaches that I don't like, such as the glut of frames on the pages, but they've already been pretty well chewed over.

[sic]

just looking at the Connect front page they have
top10, featured titles, specials, new releases
but... do you really care?

how about reviews?

[nekokami]

DRM.

[sic]

seriously, nekokami
are you saying that as a reader or as an author?
i guess, as a reader

would be nice to hear an authors perspective on this

[yvanleterrible]

DRM and someone telling me what to choose or buy. An other point related... Telling me that if I have 'X' reader, I have to buy at 'X' place.

[sic]

yvanleterrible,

I find it very interesting that you don't want to see suggested works.
Previously I started a thread asking people how they find the stuff they like.
How about adding social network kind of a thing where you would only listen to your friends suggestions? What if these friends of yours could send you the actual ebook they suggest -- because there's no DRM on it and they're explicitly allowed to do so.
But wait a sec... you wouldn't buy the book then, since you've already got it, would you? Would you?

[NatCh]

The top 10 is pretty much irrelevant for my purposes. Specials are okay, and new additions are good while the ConnStore's stock is still building.

[sic]

I work for Boeing and so I have access to OReilly's Safari online library.
They have an RSS feed of new titles, I find that very useful. Connect doesn't have this feature.

[RWood]

I could do without the style over substance GUI of the CONNECT store. They use so much of the screen in white space that the real content that I am looking at is just a small part of the total display. Also the constriction of the presented lists to just 10 or 20 at a time. (NewEgg.com, one of the best on-line computer parts site, allows up to 100 items per page with most of the screen dedicated to what I am looking at.)

I could do without the "click here for more info" buttons when they take up more room that the rest of the information they provide.

I could do without the multiple entries for the same book at multiple prices ("Jennifer Government" is one example that had two entries with a delta of $5.00 between the prices.)

I could do without the slow response that reminds me of the days of dial-up. The only part that is really fast seems to be the charging to my account and the following book download.

I could do without the multiple small sizes of fonts in the resultant books. At times Amazon posts sample pages from their pbooks for viewing, CONNECT could/should do the same. At a minimum they could post how many lines of text per page in the "S" mode so we could judge the font size if they are unable to post the base font size.

I could do without having to write posts like this as they should be leading us with new and better things, not just reacting to user complaints.

[slayda]

The main thing I don't want is a proprietary interface for the user. How about using some standards like HTML or XML. It's good enough for Amazon & Bean.

Also I don't want to be returned to the beginning of a list just because I was interested in the details of a particular entry. Think this was also mentioned on another thread here.

[yvanleterrible]

Originally Posted by sic

yvanleterrible,

I find it very interesting that you don't want to see suggested works.
Previously I started a thread asking people how they find the stuff they like.
How about adding social network kind of a thing where you would only listen to your friends suggestions? What if these friends of yours could send you the actual ebook they suggest -- because there's no DRM on it and they're explicitly allowed to do so.
But wait a sec... you wouldn't buy the book then, since you've already got it, would you? Would you?

Very kind of you to offer books. What I meant about "suggested works" is what publishers want you to read. They have many reasons to offload their wares, many of which fall into profit shemes I have no interest in. A librarian might interest me in a new work or author, that I have no qualms about. Friends, coworkers, collegues or the guy I just met who violently shakes me by the shoulders, telling me "This is the greatest book there ever was", those I might trust. I base my choices on authors. I've been following many of them for years, reading whatever I could find of them that I could afford. But I do have a huge collection, more than I could read for the rest of my life. I have pleasure doing it, surfing on the cream of litterature. It's my only vice... well that and "gear lust" as one of our British friends would say. Oh! and the latest woodworking tool makes me drool.

[Jack B Nimble]

Originally Posted by sic

How about adding social network kind of a thing where you would only listen to your friends suggestions?

Actually, social networking is one of the things I don't want. I'd much rather have a very simplified review or rating system. Fictionwise does pretty well on this.

Also, as to your questioning Neko about DRM, Fictionwise gets it right there as well. A variety of non-DRMed formats for those authors who are willing to make use of the option, and DRMed files for those authors and/or publishers that prefer it. The ability to limit searches and browsing to unprotected docs is also a very nice touch...

No wonder I like my eBookwise so much!

One place where Fictionwise does fall down badly, however, is book series. There are far too many instances where a series is complete in p-books, but Fictionwise only has some of the books. I don't know that they have much control over that, but that is certainly a 'feature' I can do without.

Jack

[ath]

Originally Posted by sic

what don't you want from an ideal ebook store?

I don't want to search for a book, select a title, and try to order the book only to learn at the last step in the ordering pocess 'we can't sell this book to you for <whatever> reason.

<whatever> includes 'you don't have the right reading unit, you don't have the appropriate DRM software, you don't live in the right country, and also internal error 0xffb53287 and near relatives'.