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Old 11-11-2011, 02:45 PM   #29
Elfwreck
Grand Sorcerer
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Posts: 5,187
Karma: 25133758
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: SF Bay Area, California, USA
Device: Pocketbook Touch HD3 (Past: Kobo Mini, PEZ, PRS-505, Clié)
I buy from Smashwords, Fictionwise (multiformat only), Baen, DriveThruRPG, and a handful of other independent publishers. I don't do DRM, and I won't install special software to buy ebooks to read on my device.

That said, people buy at Amazon because (aside from "because they have a Kindle" and "inertia"):
1) Widest selection.

2) Recommendations; plenty of "people who liked X also bought Y"

3) Easy interface: book listings aren't stuck in a narrow column in the middle of the page, and info about this book is above the "people also bought" part. (BN seems to think if you're looking at a book, you already know about it; reviews & data are an afterthought below the big BUY IT NOW button & the "ALSO YOU WOULD MAYBE LIKE" collection.)

4) Decent return policy. BN, early in their ebooking days, refused to accept returns *when they'd sent the wrong ebook.* As in, the filename was correct but the contents were a different book entirely.

5) Easy bestseller lists. See what's popular in the genre or subgenre; pick up something interesting-looking for a few bucks.

There's probably a few more reasons, but those are a start.
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