Consumer-friendly ebook retailers

[DawnFalcon]

Never mind, people would rather kvetch about the afaik reasonable rules I set than make a list. Do your own.

[Mare of Earth]

mybookstoreandmore.com seems to be pretty good. Used by Samhain Publishing and several others. Haven't actually purchased anything from them yet though. I think they use DRM though.

[susan_cassidy]

It's O'Reilly, not O'Rilley.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Okay, it's "make a list" time.

To be included on this list;

1. No DRM.
2. No Georestrictions.
3. Multiformat - PDF the only single-format allowed, otherwise a PC-readable format and either ePub or MOBI.
4. Pricing for novels not over $10 (Technical and specialist books can be higher).
Added: 5. Does not claim to restrict user rights in illegal ways

To start the list:

Webscriptions - Baen, E-Reads, Nightshade Books, SRM Publisher, Subterranean Press
Closed Circle - CJ Cherryh, Jane Fancher, Lynn Abbey
O'Reilly - O'Reilly (technical books)

Gogo people posting additions!

All these are Publisher / Author stores

It is the Publishers or Authors that make the geo-restrictions.

These are the good guys, who just want to sell books

[Zetmolm]

For those who read Russian: ozon.ru. No DRM, just a friendly request not to abuse the files. The price of most ebooks, including the latest bestsellers, is only a third to a quarter of the price of the pbook. Lots of books for about one dollar (or at least the equivalent in rubles).

And there are more retailers like that in Russia. Because the publishers allow them to sell ebooks for a much lower price than pbooks.

I wish publishers and retailers in the western world would follow their example...

[fugazied]

If you can just provide DRM free and no geographical restrictions you are 90% there!

I would pay more for a book with those two features (perhaps the only scenario that would see me pay $15)

[K-Thom]

1. No DRM.
2. No Georestrictions.
3. Multiformat - PDF the only single-format allowed, otherwise a PC-readable format and either ePub or MOBI.
4. Pricing for novels not over $10 (Technical and specialist books can be higher).
Added: 5. Does not claim to restrict user rights in illegal ways

According to your list I may consider myself to be a 100% consumer friendly publisher, thx! Alas to most members here the novels are German. But in general I agree with each and every point on your list.

[DawnFalcon]

Hi K-Thom, what kind of books does Story2Go carry? Major label, indie..

[Bremen Cole]

Here is a site that lists many DRM free shops..... http://blog.threepress.org/2009/11/1...ee-publishers/

[Deneb]

Don't forget
http://www.zuluexpress.com/Library.a...GeneralFiction

And for French readers
http://eml.guillot.free.fr/cariboost1/crbst_0.html (Babelpocket)
http://www.editions-exaequo.fr/ (or http://www.editions-exaequo.fr/shop/page/?shop_param=)

[DawnFalcon]

Zulu is only offering ePub, Deneb. There's good reason I set the rules up the way I did... (needing to install propitiatory reading software is unfriendly...PDF is pushing it, but most people have a reader for that...)

(And I *think* Bablepocket is MOBI only, feel free to correct me if so...)

[Xenophon]

But you can read ePub with Calibre's open source reader. Or with an open source FireFox plugin. And probably with other software I don't know about. Further, if it is DRM-free, you can convert to whatever format you like -- Calibre makes it easy.

Xenophon

[GhostHawk]

While I may not agree with it personally, it certainly looks to me as if Epub is stacking up to be the defacto Ebook standard for the future.

Can you really afford to ignore a site simply because they have chosen to simply their operations and only use that one format?

Users have the right to make that choice, but for a resource thread like this one to limit thier options that way is very short sighted in my opinion.

[DawnFalcon]

It's still additional software. And yes, I can and will ignore a site using and single format with the grudging exception of PDF. When you're not using DRM, there's no good reason for not also providing HTML or RTF.

PDF readers are very common, and OSX for instance reads them natively. ePub? The most favourable estimate for install base of readers I've seen was ~1.25%.

[stustaff]

I think you should switch Epub and PDF.

PDF is awful i have no way of reading it without downloading software from Adobe, its also very difficult to change to any other format.

As someone else pointed out surely using DRM free Epub is MUCH more customer friendly.