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I noticed one poster saying a Swedish customer would have access to most books at Amazon U.S. This has not been my experience from Australia. I do not have access to most of the books I want, whether old or new, and I read a wide range.
Also, I don't think this is just about old contracts. It seems to me that publishers are imposing old structures on a new situation (ebooks), and continuing deliberately to make things more difficult for customers. For example, a few weeks back three earlier volumes in a very popular series (the Argeneau series) were made available in ebook. I rushed over to Amazon to grab them. I bought volume 2, then volume 3, but was told I was not allowed to buy volume 4 because I was in Australia!
How can three consecutive ebooks in the same series, by the same author, released by the same publisher to the same retailer on the same date, have different "geographic limitations"? Does this make sense to you?
I queried Amazon, and they just sent me a pre-digested response blaming the publisher. So I wrote to the publisher (MacMillan). I'm still waiting for an explanation.
I'm willing to accept "this book was released under an old contract which didn't make it available to Australia", but I'm not willing to accept "we're not trying to release books to more countries" or "we're not trying to release books consistently". The whole geolims situation was created by the publishers, it's extremely inconvenient and costing them sales, and they don't see a problem?
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