Kobo takes over the Dutch market !

[Nick_1964]

One of the biggest (e-) bookshop in the Netherlands named BOL.com had a big problem,they lately only sold Sony E-Readers, but Sony announced to totally stop with production and selling of e-readers.
The Kobo bookshop wasn't common known in The Netherlands,they are there,but they don't advertised at all.
Now, Kobo and BOL.com announced a joint venture, BOL now has the total range of e-readers from Kobo added to their port-folio.
They combine both shops,making more then 2 million ebooks available.
There comes a combined Kobo - BOL app for android in the next months.
The only problem is that the kepub format doesn't work without the conversion in Calibre, so they will change into epub, that is compatible with both Sony and Kobo.
Maybe that means that the internal epub reader of Kobo will be upgraded and that the support will be shifted from Kepub to epub in the future.
There is now a market for thousands and more Kobo readers and accesoires available !
This is a big step for Kobo, Bol.com is the biggest player of selling ebooks in the Netherlands,and Belgium to, so Kobo allso gain access to the Belgium market !

For Dutch reading persons, the announcement of BOL.com
http://weblog.bol.com/article/bol-co...tionale-ebooks

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Now, Kobo and BOL.com announced a joint venture, BOL now has the total range of e-readers from Kobo added to their port-folio.

Up to and including the H2O. I pre-ordered mine from them yesterday.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by mbovenka

Up to and including the H2O. I pre-ordered mine from them yesterday.

I saw that you could pre-order them, I am asking myself, how do they do it with the books, BOL.com only used the epub format, the Kobo store is using the kepub format, so I don't think that the synchronisation works when you buy the books from BOL.com.
Also Sony stopped both production and selling, so if you have problems with your Sony reader,then you have really problems,you have your warranty but when it is beyond repair you don't get your money back, Sony just pulled out the plug, a friend of mine had a defective PRS-T3 in warranty,but they (BOL) only offer him a Kobo (glo) but then he has to pay extra for it ( €45 ) so I don't know where the rest of the batch of the prs-t3 is,but Sony claims that they don't have it on stock anymore and you have to be at the retailshop that sold it to you for warranty,but not to Sony..
So what is it gonna be.. epub or kepub ??
And will it be sideloaded as an epub,or do they gonna sell the kepub format, BOL is responsible for almost 75% of the total amount of e-readers sold in The Netherlands and they sell the most epubs here, Google is number two and uses allso the epub standard.
But you need a creditcard and not all of the people in The Netherlands have them,so they are diverted to BOL.com for the epub.
So will kepub slowly die here in our country ?
Bol allso announced a new feature that will be there soon, a bookshelf.
There goal is to have as much as possible e-book sellers to participate so all of your books you buy on different shops,will have a copy of your purchase at that bookshelf.. I use 4 bookstores,so my copy's are in 4 different places,they want to combine it so you have only one place where all your copy's will be,but then you allso have the problems with the synchronisation,because Kobo only synchronises the kepubs from their own store... Lot of questions here..

[Anak]

I've read the press release too. But is this a good development voor Dutch and Belgian (Flemish) readers? In the end?

Selling Kobo readers through Bol.com is not a bad idea, and Kobo could sell a lot more ereaders. Not a bad move for both parties.

The integration of a closed ecosystem (Kobo) or Bol.com ('open') isn't a big hurdle. All they have to do is to add some sort of "API Key" to the user settings at both Bol.com and Kobo and epubs will become available as kepubs in your Kobo (online) library. There is no need for conversion. Kepubs are certainly not going to disappear.

The Kobo ereaders and accesoires are and were available at many online and brick-and-mortar shops in the Netherlands and Belgium. This changes nothing for the customer (the only exception here is that you can buy these items now at bol.com at the SRP; better wait untill items become available as other vendors often offer better prices for both ereaders and accessoires.).

The number of available book titles will not increase. Some Dutch books that were available at all Dutch book sellers (all use the services of Centraal Boekhuis) with the exception of Kobo will become available at Kobo too. And vice versa for non Dutch language books which will become available at bol.com. The only advantage for the customer is that books can bought now at one shop (Kobo or Bol.com).

The cooperation between two major booksellers Bol.com (the largest bookseller in the Netherlands) and Kobo (gaining market share rapidly) will lead to decreased market competition, lower (average) discounts on e-books, and a decrease in the number of books that are discountable.

Bol.com (and all other booksellers, including Kobo) charge the (Publisher)SRP for ebooks. Only a small number of ebooks at Bol.com are discounted. These are usually only older books (at least older than one year after first publication) and the avarage discount is around 30-20%.
Occasionally Bol.com (and other booksellers) offer a 2 for 1 (50%) discount but the books to choose from is strictly limited to a very short list (of old books).

Some background information (for non Dutch citizens). The origin goes back to the "Wet op de vaste boekenprijs" (Section of law about fixed book prices) and states:

• the initial price is set by the publisher (article 2)
• after 6 months the publisher can adjust the previous fixed sales price to a new level (article 5)
• the publisher can [choose to] waive the fixed sales price for an individual book title edition after one year of first publication (article 7)

For the non Dutch readers: "Wet op de vaste boekenprijs" (Section of law about fixed book prices) has some similarities with the American Agency model regarding the suggested retail price of books.
The major difference here is that American booksellers can decide to discount books (Amazon vs Hachette, remember?) but Dutch book sellers can not (they are prohibited by law to do so.).

Here's the catch: "Wet op de vaste boekenprijs" (Section of law about fixed book prices) is not applicable to ebooks only to paper books. That is correct, but the retail price of ebooks is never set lower than the SRP. De facto this law is also applied to ebooks.
In other words: you will never see books with a SRP of €14.99 be available at, lets say €13.99, or SRP €9.99 at €8.99, but theoretically ebooks are (still) discountable.

There is not much price competition (heavily regulated by law) and oligopoly book sellers market in which Bol.com (the biggest online book retailer in The Netherlands) and Kobo (no info on market share; but very likely not the smallest anymore) are not the weakest.

[Nick_1964]

There is another disadvantage, paper books are at the low tax rate of 6% and e-books are at the normal tax rate of 21% here in the Netherlands.
They (the government) make a difference between paper books and electronical books, so they (the bookseller) have more income from the paper books then from the e-books.
Allso, you pay a small amount of money with every device you buy that go's to the "thuiskopieheffing" every phone,cd, dvd,every player and reader you pay a small fine,that go's to the industry that makes the content like music company's.
It is a copy tax,that in theory has to compensate the industry of the illegal copy's there are.
(like mp3's you can play them on your phone,so included in the price is that fee for illegal use,even when you don't play them on it,like me) But now there is a new problem,there is a ebookshop that sells "secondhand ebooks" and the anti piracy "police" called Brein has tried to end this,but they lost the case at court.
A Dutch judge says: if you remove your ebook from every device you have,you can sell it to that site (tomkabinet) once legally !
So you upload it there, all drm and watermark protection is removed and you give it a price, the site protects it again when it is sold to a new owner,with a new watermark,and when it is sold,the seller will get his money minus a fee for the site, it then will be removed from the site.
But the new owner can again,when he is finished reading,sell it at the same site.
They keep a history of buying and selling so you can never sell a copy of the book twice. (uploading it again) but a copy you buy from that site can be sold once by you,but can be sold 100 times or more because every new owner (buyer) has that right to sell it once.
And by Dutch law, it is legal.
So if I buy a ebook at Bol.com, of Google books at 5 euro, I can sell it after reading legally at that site for lets say 4,50 and they build a rather big library already.
At the end, when they keep doing it,the amount of e-books that comes out,will be less and less because when you sell it as second hand e-book,the author doesn't get his money anymore and Bol of Google will not get it too, as long as there is no copy present on your devices or computer anymore,it is legal,but who is controlling that ? And there is always a copy of the original ebook at the shop that sold it to you so even when you remove it,the copy is always there,even when you sold it on tomkabinet.
All this laws will kill the ebooks here,the differrence of the tax between 21% for an ebook and 6 % for a paper book, an extra fine for making a copy that in principle is not legal but you do pay for it,and the fact that it is now legal to sell your e-book back will get the ebook and the e-readers out of the market ! (because more sites will be copy the business model of tomkabinet,who earns now € 1.30 per sold ebook.)

[Anak]

Yes, correct the VAT difference between ebooks an paper books is also a issue.
The main problem I personally have with ebook prices in The Netherlands is that the sales price of ebooks of old books (older than 2-3 years) is almost all the time still set the initial SRP, but the paper editons of the books, such as the paperback editon, the midprice edition, "voordeeleditie" (I won't try to translate this; very similar to the midprice edition but slightly different), or the pocket editon are significant cheaper than the ebook edition.
This is even the case when the paper edition is no longer available (out of print and/or EOL "not profitable to justify a reprint").
And the Dutch publishers still don't understand why 90% of all ebooks are pirated.
There is also lack of a legal, subscription based alternative such as a "All you can read subscription".

Edit: @Nick_1964 comment on post below about 'Elly'. I read about that subscription service. They offer 10 different books each month and each book covers a different book genre and will also contain books of new, unknown or debuting writers. Ten books is not much to choose from and if you factor in the different book genres, there are probably quite a few books each month you don't want to read because they don't fit you personal reading preferences.
For this reason alone this service will not become succesful, but sure, it is a good start. That's why I made the remark about that there is no legal alternative, but I should have said good or feasible alternative.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by Anak

Yes, correct the VAT difference between ebooks an paper books is also a issue.
The main problem I personally have with ebook prices in The Netherlands is that the sales price of ebooks of old books (older than 2-3 years) is almost all the time still set the initial SRP, but the paper editons of the books, such as the paperback editon, the midprice edition, "voordeeleditie" (I won't try to translate this; very similar to the midprice edition but slightly different), or the pocket editon are significant cheaper than the ebook edition.
This is even the case when the paper edition is no longer available (out of print and/or EOL "not profitable to justify a reprint").
And the Dutch publishers still don't understand why 90% of all ebooks are pirated.
There is also lack of a legal, subscription based alternative such as a "All you can read subscription".

The last one is not true, I don't want to make "commercials" or advertising but there is a company that sells books on a monthly fee, (Elly) you get a subscription and every month you can download 10 books,next month there are 10 new ones and they have recent books there. I believe it is € 3 a month.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

Maybe that means that the internal epub reader of Kobo will be upgraded and that the support will be shifted from Kepub to epub in the future.

I'd suspect that Kobo will continue using two ebook renderers in their devices until DataLogic or other Adobe partner upgrades the RMSDK to version 11 which should remove the need to use the ACCESS renderer for compatibility with epub3 features needed in the Japanese market.

Regards,
David

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by DNSB

I'd suspect that Kobo will continue using two ebook renderers in their devices until DataLogic or other Adobe partner upgrades the RMSDK to version 11 which should remove the need to use the ACCESS renderer for compatibility with epub3 features needed in the Japanese market.

Regards,
David

I doubt that will make any difference to them. Remember there are also the two totally distinct DRM schemes in use as well.

[Nick_1964]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I doubt that will make any difference to them. Remember there are also the two totally distinct DRM schemes in use as well.

Bol.com only uses the digital watermark for a while, books are no longer protected with DRM. ( maybe some old books are, but the new ones don't use the DRM anymore.)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I doubt that will make any difference to them. Remember there are also the two totally distinct DRM schemes in use as well.

Probably 3 or more different DRM schemes since Adobe has two DRM implementations and, if rumour is to believed, will soon have a third variant in which you will need a continuous connection to the internet to read an ebook. Hmmm... where did I leave that Jolly Roger?

Regards,

David

[Nick_1964]

The third one is already used at Dutch library's where you don't download the whole book,but stream it.
That one has to be boycotted, not for security reasons,but there are enough places,like on vacation or airplane,when you want to read there is no wifi present.
When I buy a paper book, I don't want to have 5 pages and then return to get the next 5 pages.
If that is the future, I will change to scanning myself again.

[Anak]

Originally Posted by Nick_1964

The third one is already used at Dutch library's where you don't download the whole book,but stream it.
That one has to be boycotted, not for security reasons,but there are enough places,like on vacation or airplane,when you want to read there is no wifi present.
When I buy a paper book, I don't want to have 5 pages and then return to get the next 5 pages.
If that is the future, I will change to scanning myself again.

To borrow an ebook from Dutch libraries you need
• (local) library card / online account
• ereader
• Adobe Digital Editions

Then your able to borrow and download the ebooks to your ereader.
After downloading you can read the books off line, a WiFi conncection is not required.
When the lending periods expires the ebooks will be deleted automatically from your ereader.
You can check the expiration date and time of an individual book under the book info. If the ereader shows the proper metadata tag. Currently, Kobo ereaders don't.



Check: 2:09 - 2:44 mark

[Nick_1964]

@Anak, there are more systems then only the one you show, at our library you get a subsription and the book will be streamed to you for 3 weeks, after that you can ask if they want to "renew the subscription of that book" and if not, it will be deleted.
You use a tablet, or an e-reader with a webbrowser to read the books.
Not all the library's use the same system,there are allso "virtual Library's" that don't have a real location where you can go to with an e-reader, they use the same streaming system.
The system you show, is not used in our city. ( I can use it if I want offcourse, but our library has a bigger e-book department then the one showed on the video, and if you want to loan it locally they use the streaming system,you never have the book on your reader totally, and with that system you need wifi to renew the next part of the book,then the old part is deleted, so there is a difference between the local library and the online one showed in your "movie")

[MilGreat2010]

Are kobo ereaders in the Netherlands actually different from other ones because it has a different boot screen that shows: kobo | bol.com, so does that mean that it has different firmware? Or is it just another e-reader entirely?