Where to Buy Books for Kobo?

[enuddleyarbl]

Well, I feel silly. Since I've been using Kindles until now, I've almost always bought my books on Amazon, downloaded them into an old Kindle so I got a format that would work with DeDRM, sideloaded them over to Calibre for processing and sideloaded them back to my Kindle. Now I've got a Kobo Forma and am wondering where the best place is to buy books to manage on Calibre. Should I continue with the Amazon shuffle as described above? Should I buy from Kobo (I guess I'd have to download via their Desktop App and do a similar Kobo shuffle). Or, would I be better off with some other store? I'm assuming the pricing will be similar. So, I guess it's just the book availability and mechanism I'd use to get the books over to Calibre and back to the Forma I'm wondering about. Is this a matter of "six of one, half a dozen of the other?"

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by DaveLessnau

Is this a matter of "six of one, half a dozen of the other?"

Pretty much. As you are already using calibre to get books to the Kindle, you can just keep doing the same: buy a book, add to calibre and then send to device. Calibre will handle the conversion. And you can add the DRM tools if that is an issue.

Buying from Kobo while using one of their ereaders has the same advantages as Amazon and a Kindle. They can be automatically downloaded to the device, and the reading status can be synced to other devices/apps from the same company.

If you do buy from Kobo and want to add the book to calibre, you have the choice of downloading the book via the Kobo desktop application and using the Obok plugin to add it to calibre. Or you can download the epub from the Kobo store. Books without DRM are downloaded directly and ADE is used for books with DRM.

I mainly buy from Kobo, but, that is largely because I am lazy. Buy the book, sync the device and start reading. I buy enough books from elsewhere, especially if they are cheaper or not available from Kobo, that getting them to my devices is a well practised act.

[enuddleyarbl]

Thanks for the help.

[Sirtel]

I buy wherever the book is cheapest. Amazon, Kobo, Google Play. From what I've read here it seems the price is mostly the same everywhere if you're in the US, but that's not the case for me. The prices I see sometimes vary pretty wildly.

[JSWolf]

There is also eBooks.com to buy ePub eBooks from. In the UK, they have some of the lowest prices.

eBooks.com is a multinational company like Kobo is.

[Quoth]

I use Smashwords and Amazon for my Kobo.

[rashkae]

It's worth noting that for books with image contents, Amazon downscales and degrades them for their azw3/mobi downloads. Sometimes significantly. Kobo is one of the few stores that lets you download the book at full resolution as provided by publisher.

Edit: Also worth noting, for Canadian residents, that Amazon does not charge Canada sales tax on digital books, but Kobo has too. So even on something that is price matched, Kobo is 8 to 13% more expensive.

yay for bureaucracy stabbing our own in the back.

[4691mls]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I buy wherever the book is cheapest. Amazon, Kobo, Google Play. From what I've read here it seems the price is mostly the same everywhere if you're in the US, but that's not the case for me. The prices I see sometimes vary pretty wildly.

I'm in the US and I've sometimes found price differences between stores that sell epubs - Kobo, Google Play, Booksamillion. If price is important to you, it never hurts to check multiple stores before buying.

[bookaho!ic]

I buy my epubs from Kobo, ebooks.com and also google play

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I use Smashwords and Amazon for my Kobo.

I avoid Amazon if I can get the same eBook in ePub for the same or less.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I avoid Amazon if I can get the same eBook in ePub for the same or less.

A good plan.

[Nascarfan1972]

It is always worth looking for the ebook on the kobo website and then comparing the price with other ebook websites. If the price is lower elsewhere, buy it on the kobo site and use the kobo price match gaurentee (bottom of the home page) to give the details of the book. When kobo approve this they will refund the difference + 10% as a credit to your kobo account.

[ashandarey]

Originally Posted by Nascarfan1972

It is always worth looking for the ebook on the kobo website and then comparing the price with other ebook websites. If the price is lower elsewhere, buy it on the kobo site and use the kobo price match gaurentee (bottom of the home page) to give the details of the book. When kobo approve this they will refund the difference + 10% as a credit to your kobo account.

Thats a very helpful information I wasnt aware of! Thank you!

[hobnail]

I get a daily email from https://www.ereaderiq.com/ and probably download at least one a day from that. They're amazon only (as far as I can tell). Since I was already doing the DeDRM song and dance for my Kindle I never bothered to figure out how to switch to Kobo's store when I got the Forma.

[enuddleyarbl]

I bought my first book from Kobo (DRM free), but I'm getting some odd behavior differences between what syncs to the Forma and what I download from Kobo to Calibre:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=339826

Is there some way to copy the synced version on the Forma directly to Calibre? EDIT: when I try to Add the book within Calibre from the Device, all I get is:

"calibre, version 5.20.0
Not Implemented: The following books are virtual and cannot be added to the calibre library:

E:\.kobo\kepub\bf6d5ca1-9ed8-4eb4-80f0-f0377e129e78"