[MikeFromMesa]

I had always thought that the eBooks that are sold by Barnes & Noble and by the Amazon Kindle store were basically identical. The publisher produced an eBook version and the stores sold it. But is this true?

I recently bought 1942: The Year That Tried Men's Souls by Winston Groom from the Kindle store for the Kindle app on my iPad. When I started to read it I found that the footnote and source links in the book only worked in the forward direction. That is, I could follow the link to the source or footnote, but the reverse link was not active. Since I like to follow the source and footnotes I was unhappy enough to return the book to Amazon.

Today I was in my local B&N and downloaded the same book to the store's Nook Color. The links worked in both directions. Why? It is not the reader apps since both iPad apps (the Kindle and Nook) support links in both directions as I have read books where the links are active in both directions. Both the Kindle and B&N versions are from the same publisher (Grove).

I bought the B&N version, downloaded it to my iPad and the links work in both directions. I know they will work on my Nook Color since they worked in the store. But only on the B&N version and not the Kindle version? Does anyone know what is going on here? I am reasonably sure it is not due to differences in the apps.