Buying Amazon.com books/magazines in the UK

[tomblond]

Hello, I'm from the UK and so, of course, use Amazon.co.uk. I was browsing through the Kindle store on Amazon.com, however, and found that some magazines and books that I like are available on Amazon.com but not Amazon.co.uk.

Is it possible to buy books and/or magazine subscriptions from Amazon.com if you're a UK resident?

(I'd check but I don't have my Kindle yet)

Thank you,
Tom

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by tomblond

Hello, I'm from the UK and so, of course, use Amazon.co.uk. I was browsing through the Kindle store on Amazon.com, however, and found that some magazines and books that I like are available on Amazon.com but not Amazon.co.uk.

Is it possible to buy books and/or magazine subscriptions from Amazon.com if you're a UK resident?

(I'd check but I don't have my Kindle yet)

Thank you,
Tom

Publishers often only have the rights to sell certain books in certain regions. So an American publisher might have rights for US/Canada/Mexico, and a British publisher might have rights for UK/Europe.

It has been agreed that the point of sale for digital downloads is the location of the buyer, not the seller. So US publishers aren't allowed to sell UK residents ebooks for which they only have US rights.

These 'Geographical Restrictions' have been getting enforced more strongly in the past couple of years.

Technically, it's possible to buy restricted books from Amazon.com in the UK, through clever use of paypal or giftcards, along with a US-based http/https proxy. And you have to keep your Kindle unconnected for a while, because Amazon can track its location through the wireless connection

But IMO it's more hassle than it's worth.

Of course, according to the same rules, if you're visiting the US with your Kindle, you should then be able to buy geographically restricted titles from Amazon.com, but not from Amazon.co.uk. But at present, it's most likely you'll end up finding it hard to buy either.

It's all a bit of a mess, and will be until the rules change to make the sales location the place of business of the seller (unlikely) or contracts get re-negotiated to give publishers non-exclusive world-wide rights to ebooks. (Possible, but not a global fix, as every contract for every book has to get changed, one by one.)

[tomblond]

Ah, oh well. Thanks for the detailed response.

Amazon needs a better magazine collection. There's some alright ones there, but more choice would be very nice.

I guess things in that regard can only be set to improve though. Soon hopefully!

Cheers,
Tom

[Kindle Addict]

Huh? I thought it was agreed on many other threads that all you have to do is change the address of your Kindle to a US one. No proxies, no gift cards. At the very worst, Amazon will send you a 'warning' email when you buy things. As an added bonus, the books are usually cheaper!

Think of it - Amazon will do the minimum amount publishers require to protect their agreements, since Amazon still gets the sale in the end.

[arcadata]

Originally Posted by Kindle Addict

Huh? I thought it was agreed on many other threads that all you have to do is change the address of your Kindle to a US one. No proxies, no gift cards. At the very worst, Amazon will send you a 'warning' email when you buy things. As an added bonus, the books are usually cheaper!

Think of it - Amazon will do the minimum amount publishers require to protect their agreements, since Amazon still gets the sale in the end.

It's not just a warning email. I think they also do something to your account, so you can't buy anymore more books until you fix your address. There have been posts complaining about that.

[tomblond]

That's interesting. Some more clarification on this would be nice, as my searches aren't showing that much in the way of clear answers.

I'm especially interested in the US magazines, would this be harder due to the subscription model?

Maybe I should just stick to the UK ones...

[Kindle Addict]

Originally Posted by arcadata

It's not just a warning email. I think they also do something to your account, so you can't buy anymore more books until you fix your address. There have been posts complaining about that.

I haven't heard of that, but I don't doubt it. The message is because your credit card country doesn't match your Kindle's country. If you really want the US magazines and don't want the message, you can still use one of those credit card gift cards, although I'm not sure how the work in the UK.

Personally, I would change the Kindle's address and buy all the magazines, then wait for the email and change your address back (if required). Amazon still wants your money!

[abookreader]

In the past I've done just fine with just changing my address on the Manage Your Kindle page to the country of choice and buying the book. My Kindle has 3 different home - US, UK and Canada and I've changed back and forth several times to get availability and/or more favorable pricing.

I don't buy several books all at once though and I've never tried it with magazines. From what I've seen people who get the email letter usually seem to get caught because they're buying 4 or 5 books at once.

I've seen people report that their account was temporarily frozen for a day or so but then they just changed their address back to match their IP location and the hold would go away and they are able to buy again. I've never seen anybody report that Amazon actually terminated their entire account.

Blech. The circles people run around in trying to get the privilege of buying these books - heh?

[Lexi Revellian]

I live in London. Back in the days when I was doing ABNA, I needed an American Amazon Account. I used Amazon's Seattle headquarters as my home address (I looked up a photo of it, and chose a nice window right at the top) and it went unremarked.