Borders ebook store now live (US only)

[rcrh]

Originally Posted by zsmomma

If you download the Borders app, you can choose a free ebook from their list of 5.

Did you have any luck with this? I've tried buying these "free" books through both the iPad app and the desktop app. Both fail. And, I've tried multiple credit cards to pay for the "free" books. I've sent them support questions but I've not had any reply.

[rcrh]

Originally Posted by jennstall

They just send out an email today offering five brand new ebooks for free if you download the app. But when I checked the book on my iPod Borders App, they weren't free. On the Borders website they are free however and I didn't need to download their software at all. I just downloaded the books to the Sony Reader Library.

The titles are:
Julia's Kitchen Wisdom (Julia Child)
Dean Koontz's Frankenstein
The Alchemyst (Michael Scott)
One Shot (Lee Child)
Jillian Michaels' Master Your Metabolism

Really? I tried looking the first title and it shows a price of $14.95.

Something isn't quite right with there site.

[Maggie Leung]

I'm avoiding Borders e-purchases till they work out major bugs. It's as if we're beta testing for them right now. I have an older account and they have trouble even bringing up accurate buying history and seem to have charged me for a freebie. No biggie; it's just 10 bucks. I don't wanna deal with more buying hassles, though. There are plenty of other (functioning) sites to buy from.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Maggie Leung

I'm avoiding Borders e-purchases till they work out major bugs. It's as if we're beta testing for them right now. I have an older account and they have trouble even bringing up accurate buying history and seem to have charged me for a freebie. No biggie; it's just 10 bucks. I don't wanna deal with more buying hassles, though. There are plenty of other (functioning) sites to buy from.

It's truly unfortunate that this is par for the course with software releases these days.

[Lilly]

Today I tried to buy 3 books from their store and I was frustrated. All 3 books where in my Wish list and there was no way to add all three to Cart. I also found several books that had only Buy Now buttons and no Cart button outside of the Wish List. They actually wanted me to purchase each book separately and that was to much hassle to save $1.50 so I purchased them elsewhere.

[pwjone1]

Anyone know what happened to the older Sony-Borders e-Book Store?

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17826

I was poking around the Borders eBook store, and it looked nice enough, haven't sorted out yet in my mind whether it's a rebranded kobobooks.com as some have said, or not. Lots of similarities.

Kind of looks like an Adobe/ePub sort of thing, similar to B&N, so I guess that's goodness, in the sense that there's at least not a new DRM format, and therefore not extending the current problem all that much. But I am kind of surprised that there seems to be a bit of a convergence on Apple, seems to be the iPad is the one device everyone is supporting.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's truly unfortunate that this is par for the course with software releases these days.

Very true, I think probably all major corporations are now using us as ginea pigs when it comes to testing software. It's cheaper to test the software out on us & fix any bugs that come up after the fact rather then have to pay employees salaries/benefits to test & fix buggy software so that they can release it the right way the first time around.

This is precisely why I am NOT an early adopter of new technology or software.

I'm not paying big bucks for a halfassed working product then spend months waiting for them to put out a patch for it.

[AnemicOak]

Has to be the worst ebook store site I've seen so far. Half the books don't even note the author so they don't show up when searching by author name.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Very true, I think probably all major corporations are now using us as ginea pigs when it comes to testing software. It's cheaper to test the software out on us & fix any bugs that come up after the fact rather then have to pay employees salaries/benefits to test & fix buggy software so that they can release it the right way the first time around.

This is precisely why I am NOT an early adopter of new technology or software.

I'm not paying big bucks for a halfassed working product then spend months waiting for them to put out a patch for it.

That's exactly what happened with last years Painter release from Corel. It contained a number of clearly obvious bugs that any half-assed QA test should have found, yet it was released and was virtually un-useable. It took several months to get a patch that fixed the major issues.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Has to be the worst ebook store site I've seen so far. Half the books don't even note the author so they don't show up when searching by author name.

Yeah, like this one....it's only been #1 for a few weeks this year:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/...sku=1440697663

[Maggie Leung]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

Very true, I think probably all major corporations are now using us as ginea pigs when it comes to testing software. It's cheaper to test the software out on us & fix any bugs that come up after the fact rather then have to pay employees salaries/benefits to test & fix buggy software so that they can release it the right way the first time around.

This is precisely why I am NOT an early adopter of new technology or software.

I'm not paying big bucks for a halfassed working product then spend months waiting for them to put out a patch for it.

I'm pretty tolerant about giving businesses time to work out problems, but I think this Borders debut is ridiculously bad, even in the age of limited testing.

There's a point when trying to save money or rush out a product or service is self-defeating; you can cost yourself sales longer term. Seems to me that Borders has done that. Some businesses can get away with more bugs, because of unique products, lead time, etc. Borders doesn't have such a luxury. It's not only late to market with identical products that others are selling for similar prices, its software is a mess.

[mreclass]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Yeah, like this one....it's only been #1 for a few weeks this year:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/...sku=1440697663

Ouch. I didn't know things were that bad with their e-book store.

[J. Strnad]

kennyc, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it's a Penguin book, and they seem to be openly hostile to ebooks. If this information is provided by the publisher, and the publisher doesn't bother to list the author, whose fault is it?

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

kennyc, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it's a Penguin book, and they seem to be openly hostile to ebooks. If this information is provided by the publisher, and the publisher doesn't bother to list the author, whose fault is it?

Not blaming anyone particularly, just saying it's a bad experience and less useful to the buyer.

Here's the Amazon listing: http://www.amazon.com/The-Help-ebook...=AG56TWVU5XWC2

Some difference, eh?

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

kennyc, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that it's a Penguin book, and they seem to be openly hostile to ebooks. If this information is provided by the publisher, and the publisher doesn't bother to list the author, whose fault is it?

I don't know that Penguin is hostile towards ebooks. They put out a lot more of them, including backlist stuff, than some of the other publishers. They do have a very SET idea on what ebooks should sell for, but that doesn't necessarily make them hostile. If I was going to pick one big pub that give off the hostile vibe it's usually MacMillan.

Since Borders 'store' is powered by Kobo (IIRC) and Kobo lists these books with the author info I'd guess its a snafu on the Borders side, but who knows.


Regardless of who's 'at fault' it makes for a crappy shopping experience.