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Originally Posted by sorbix
Well, I am mostly frustrated because Amazon has the potential to offer many more ebooks than other retailers... and I would like to read them!
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It would only make sense that once the publisher goes to the trouble of creating the ebook that it'll be made available in other formats too. Pretty much all the big publishers have already said there are no plans for Kindle exclusive books so don't you think with Amazon pushing publishers to get things out all the other formats will benefit as well. You may not get the same price on bestsellers if you buy them in Mobi format for the Iliad, but with Amazon behind ebooks in general the whole catalog available to everyone should grow.
People seem to be making a big deal about the 88,000, or whatever the number is now, Kindle books but how many are books you'd ever want? How many are actually short stories or specialty books/documents that most folks will have no use for? I haven't looked so I'm not sure, but I'd bet a bunch are and are just helping pad the numbers or available titles.
I know some folks are pissed because they want the same $9.99 bestsellers deal for their device of choice. Also some are pissed because it's a US only device at this point. Amazon is subsidizing the low price of those $9.99 books as an enticement to sell the Kindle so of course they aren't going to be available to any other device.
As for the US only thing, hopefully that will change but as Amazon is a bookseller I'm sure they had to offer some assurances to publishers in other countries that the books wouldn't be able to usurp sales of locally published editions or it would hurt Amazon's existing pbook relationships. How many publishing houses in the UK or Canada or Germany or elsewhere even do ebooks? I've looked for some UK ebooks of a few books I want not available in the US & found none available. It would be easy if the publishing market was global, but with all the local divisions & fiefdoms out there it's not and publishing rights are separate for a lot of those areas. In order to release a device in other markets & keep those publishers happy the books have to first be available in those markets to sell. This isn't a problem for iRex or Bookeen because all they sell are devices, but for a company that's already one of the largest booksellers out there it has to play a part in their decisions.