Buying mobi ebooks from other than Amazon?

[AlexBell]

The Edinburgh Bookshop at

http://www.edinburghbookshop.com/subpages/ebooks.html

has recently begun selling ebooks from their indie store. They have a comment on their site

'Unfortunately we are unable to sell e-books that work on Kindle devices: Amazon's design means that only e-books purchased from them will work.'

Surely that's not right. DRM free mobi and azw3 ebooks - like those from the MobileRead library - will work whoever supplies them.

I vaguely remember that there is some restriction to the effect that if one uses Amazon software to produce the ebook then the ebook has to be sold through Amazon. But there are ways of producing mobi and azw3 ebooks without using Amazon software, and without having to go near Amazon.

So who is right, me or The Edinburgh Bookshop?

[eschwartz]

Well, lots of places do sell .mobi ebooks, not through Amazon. I don't know why they don't sell .azw3, perhaps because only Kindle's really support KF8 anyway? mobi7 on the other hand is readable by a number of ereaders, because it was owned by mobipocket and I guess Amazon never got exclusive rights to it? Unlike KF8 which they created themselves.

[PurpleStar]

Yes, other stores do sell .mobi/amazon books. Baen, for example and they will work on the kindle.

[cromag]

Smashwords offers .mobi for Kindles.

[AlexBell]

Thanks for your responses. I'd forgotten about Baen and Smashwords, or that would have made the Edinburgh statement seem even more preposterous.

[HarryT]

You are correct, though, in saying that books created with "Kindlegen" can only be sold at Amazon. Baen use Calibre.

[ProfCrash]

I emailed them a heads up. Maybe others should as well.

[Lemurion]

DRM-free mobi is readily available, but yeah, Amazon's it for DRM.

[pidgeon92]

I saw that same silly excuse on another website recently. Very important to get that little jab in at big, bad Amazon.

If they are selling the content DRM free, they're shooting themselves in the foot with that one.

[soulfuldog]

I know their statement is incorrect, but don't Baen and Smashwords sell a particular type of book, and therefore don't carry many of the most 'popular' titles? So if this independent bookshop wanted to be able to sell the widest range of books that they stock in their physical bookshop, they would probably find that the publishers wouldn't be willing to allow them to be sold DRM-free. In which case, they can't sell Kindle books?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by l_macd

I know their statement is incorrect, but don't Baen and Smashwords sell a particular type of book, and therefore don't carry many of the most 'popular' titles?

True. Baen sells their own Science Fiction & Fantasy titles (& a couple other publishers) and Smashwords is mainly self-pubbed books. However many smaller publishers also sell their books DRM free.

So if this independent bookshop wanted to be able to sell the widest range of books that they stock in their physical bookshop, they would probably find that the publishers wouldn't be willing to allow them to be sold DRM-free. In which case, they can't sell Kindle books?

If they really wanted a wide range they'd be selling both DRM'd and DRM-free titles. The DRM'd titles obviously wouldn't be available for Kindle's, but the DRM-free ones could be. Fictionwise's "multi-format" (DRM-free in many formats) offerings were pretty successful back in the day.

[soulfuldog]

Thanks for clearing it up for me.

I get what you are saying about the widest choice, but at the same time, they are probably just taking what they consider to be the easiest option? And as they will struggle to compete on price with Amazon anyway, a nice wee statement that its down to Amazon that they don't sell Kindle books will possibly chime with the people who are considering buying from them in the first place..... or am I just a cynic?

[Josieb1]

I buy romance stories from AllRomance and at least a dozen independent publishers and in all places I get DRM free mobi files which I then email to Amazon to go on my Kindle, I've never had any problems at all.

[pidgeon92]

So, I looked at the original link to this bookstore, and they are not selling ebooks on their site. The link on the page goes to this:

http://www.indieebook.co.uk/StoreFront

I wonder if it is more lucrative for them to be an affiliate for this little company, or for Amazon. Or perhaps the bookshop and the ebook retailer are the same company with different names?

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by pidgeon92

So, I looked at the original link to this bookstore, and they are not selling ebooks on their site. The link on the page goes to this:

http://www.indieebook.co.uk/StoreFront

I wonder if it is more lucrative for them to be an affiliate for this little company, or for Amazon. Or perhaps the bookshop and the ebook retailer are the same company with different names?

I think you are right, but it's not obvious at first glance.

Their statement, by the way, says words to the effect that only Amazon can sell ebooks readable on Kindle. This is clearly wrong.

Before I retired I looked for ignorance before I looked for malice when things went wrong. Neither Edinburgh Books or Indieebook.co.uk have replied to me yet, so I don't think anyone can tell which one they are showing.