Ubibooks offers 20% on all e-books / word from Unibooks

[Michael]

Hello everyone,

Despite Alexander's prediction, I hope we will not fail.

Nevertheless, Alexander's comments are welcome and help us to make our shop more interesting and attractive for our customers.

We choose to use one format (Mobipocket) because
1 - we want to have the site as simple as possible for a new ebook customer.
2 - As Mobipocket is running on almost every PDA or PC, you don't have to choose your ebook depending on your hardware (some PDF ebooks are not well reflowed on your PDA), Microsoft Reader does not run on Palm,etc.

I am OK with Alexander's comment on DRM-free ebooks (classics) that mask all the recent books. From this comment we decided to change our first welcome page. You can have a look www.ubibooks.com.

We decide also to offer a special welcome rebate of 20% on all our ebooks .

So welcome to ubibooks.

Best regards to all.
Michael

[Alexander Turcic]

Michael,

Of course I do not want you to fail; yet, I very much hope that you will consider offering alternative formats in future.

I give you one example why Mobipocket does not suit everyone: I have an Axim X50v, one of those nifty VGA devices running WM 2003SE. Until today, Mobipocket was unable to deliver an update that would be fully VGA-aware. Look at the screenshot (screen01.png) how fuzzy the font looks like. This is typical for VGA-unaware applications; the font is difficult to look at, and scrolling and navigating is painfully slow. In contrast, readers such as iSilo that are actively supported look very nice on the latest devices. Look at the screenshot (screen02.png) how sharp the font is, making it a true pleasure to read full-length texts.

Here we have a proprietary e-book format that is incompatible with any reader but Mobipocket, a reader that does not even fully support my device. And what if other readers try to support the Mobipocket format? Have a look in this thread. Quote Mobipocket:

The fact is that the support of Mobipocket file format is forbidden (encrypted files or not)... They may have done some reverse engineering on the file format, which is not allowed by the EULA any Mobipocket user agree when installing the Mobipocket software.

I will stay far away from Mobipocket. I wish your e-book store all the success it deserves; and perhaps, one day you'll reconsider your choice of only offering one e-book format.

[hacker]

Is it Ubibooks, or Unibooks?

[filip]

As a french ebook reader I'm really happy to see another ebook reseller in french.
But very disapointed by the choice of the format. Not by mobipocket itself wich is my main ebook reader on my clie, but the by the choice of the use of a drm

I don't want to be bound to a certain device (even if mobipocket support a very large of them).

As for the price of ebooks in french, I know that they are not cheaper to produce than paper books, but your prices are the same or largely higher than the paper publishing one. It's another big restraint to not buying ebooks in french...

I hope that you will not fail and that one day you will publish unencrypted ebooks.

Philippe

[Michael]

I hope, we will be able to sell books without DRM one day but for the time being we have to do with this constraint. I fully understand the concerns of the publisher and the desires of the customer.

For Mobipocket, the VGA bug is very annoying but I am quiet sure they will solve it in a next release. The Mobipocket policy is to be as cross-platform as possible and as VGA resolution become more and more frequent they will work on it.

I don't understand what makes Isilo a good ebook reader? You use slider to browse the text, no page, no chapter.

Even with 20% offn our french ebooks remain as expensive as the paper ones, can't be.

regards,

[filip]

Even with 20% offn our french ebooks remain as expensive as the paper ones, can't be.

I don't know if it's a question or not
But I can respond.
It's true that with the 20% off most ebooks are cheaper that their counter part in paper (but the regular price is in generaly the same).

But there is at least 2 ebooks wich are more than two times more expensive than their paper edition. The explaination is I think that the ebook publisher is the paperback editor, and you can find the cheaper pocket edition in libraries.

As for the DRM I understand that you are between the consumers and the publisher, but they must change their mind if they want me buy their books.

Good luck in the business

Do you plan to go at the 'Salon du Livre' in Paris?

Philippe

[taniwha]

I'm pleased you choose mobipocket, they do support many platofrms - multi reader support would have been nicer. (and Mobipocket don't do linux based PDAs)

ebooks are cheaper for myself, because they come from the internet and hence avoid sales tax. a Paper books from a e-tailer would include freight, so ebooks always come out cheaper.