Sony closes USA and Canada ebook store

[BearMountainBooks]

Originally Posted by benham

No. It was on Kindle. Generally books have been cheaper on Kindle than Sony. I hadn't checked Kobo in about 3 years.

Ah, there are a lot of authors exclusive to Kindle, especially some backlist authors.

I find that I only buy at Kobobooks when I have the coupons. They are running a deal right now where if you leave a review, you get a 50 percent off coupon. I found a penguin book that it did NOT work on but the other book I was interested in, it worked just fine. (You only get one coupon regardless of the number of reviews.)

They do other coupons frequently too-- 20 and 30 percent most of the time.

[faithbw]

Ehh, I always download and backup my e-books, no matter where I buy them from. I didn't buy from Sony often because they didn't have a great selection (Kobo and Amazon have a much bigger selection) and their prices usually weren't competitive. I'm not surprised by this. They decided not to sell the T3 in the US. It was pretty obvious Sony that Sony was losing money in the North American e-reader market and was probably thinking about leaving for some time.

[cfrizz]

Originally Posted by benham

Maybe we could copy the files to our hard drive or SD card?

Of course you can, they are probably already on your hard drive if you dl from your pc.

[khalleron]

Sigh.

My FictionWise purchases never DID transfer over to B&N (and that was supposed to happen over a year ago).

I always back up everything, but the shrinking of the epub marketplace is rather depressing. I do get most of my books from Kobo, which is fine if nothing goes wrong, but when it does their customer service absolutely stinks. I had an issue that went to 'Tier 2' months ago and still have never heard from anyone at Tier 2. I think it's just a ploy to get people to shut up.

I'll keep my T1 going as long as possible - but when it dies I don't know what I'll do. I don't want a Kindle, and I don't trust Kobo to stand behind their products.

Double sigh.

[6charlong]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Sigh.

My FictionWise purchases never DID transfer over to B&N (and that was supposed to happen over a year ago).

I always back up everything, but the shrinking of the epub marketplace is rather depressing. I do get most of my books from Kobo, which is fine if nothing goes wrong, but when it does their customer service absolutely stinks. I had an issue that went to 'Tier 2' months ago and still have never heard from anyone at Tier 2. I think it's just a ploy to get people to shut up.

I'll keep my T1 going as long as possible - but when it dies I don't know what I'll do. I don't want a Kindle, and I don't trust Kobo to stand behind their products.

Double sigh.

I lost all of my Fictionwise books except the ones I had downloaded too. They were multi-format and have no DRM--I do miss FW.

You might consider looking for a local indie bookstore that sells Kobo. If you register through them a part of the profit for the books you buy will go local, and you can take some problems to the store. How well that works depends on the staff at your local store, but nothing gets better without work and attention. I've rediscovered this nice indie bookstore near home through Kobo and glad I did.

[melmac]

Originally Posted by robko

Kobo has some experience with takeovers like this in Australia, so it might be less painful than might otherwise be expected (but there is no way that a transition like this will ever go perfectly).

I have some experience with this and it was far from painless
Two sellers Angus and Robertson and Bookworld transferred their users accounts over to Kobo neither was a smooth transition in fact if you ask me it's still not correct. What was supposed to happen was if you did not have an existing account with kobo then one was created with the same login as your A&R account and your library transferred I believe this went smoothly for users and was all ok. However if you already had a kobo account the library's were supposed to merge this did not work for most users particularly for those that used the same email/password combo for both sellers in the end it was too hard for them and they gave up and came up with a hodge podge solution

I used the same email and password for both sellers if I log in to the normal Kobo website with that login then my existing A&R library is not visible only my kobo library however if I go to the sign in page and on the left select "Don't see your usual sign in option" and then select A&R from the list then I can not only see my A&R library but also my kobo library together.



I also had a bookworld account so if I want to see those I have to choose the bookworld login I then see the kobo books and the bookworld books but not the A&R books I envision then will soon be a Sony option too and I think I'll stop there as it's getting a bit ridicules and I haven't even yet mentioned that I have 2 Sony accounts one US one AUS thank gawd for ALF

[Xanthe]

Well, kiss any Sony books I might have bought goodbye, if the transition is anything like Fictionwise's to B&N, since those never transferred over.

Then again, I don't know that I bought many from Sony, given that their prices were always higher than other sellers'.

[Onemack]

Originally Posted by melmac

I have some experience with this and it was far from painless that I have 2 Sony accounts one US one AUS thank gawd for ALF

I agree with the second bit (also my thanks to Alf) However my transition of the Aus bookstores to Kobo was excellent and I might now be able to access the hundreds of books I bought from the Sony US store in 2007/08/09/10, that they suddenly cut me off from because I was living outside the US.

The existing US Sony Reader store will not show them in my US or Aus Library they did not transfer them to the Aus store, whereas the Kobo store transferred all my purchases from A&R and Bookworld etc.

I shall wait and see if they transfer the Sony US books to Kobo (not particularly hopeful, but you never know)

John

[melmac]

Originally Posted by Onemack

However my transition of the Aus bookstores to Kobo was excellent

Did you already have a kobo account before the transition? Do you have to select the A&R login or can you just login at the regular kobo sign in page?

[benham]

Originally Posted by Tarana

, start downloading now and removing DRM.

I take it we need to remove the DRM by March 20 in order to read the books we downloaded?

[Alfy]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Sigh.

My FictionWise purchases never DID transfer over to B&N (and that was supposed to happen over a year ago).

I always back up everything, but the shrinking of the epub marketplace is rather depressing. I do get most of my books from Kobo, which is fine if nothing goes wrong, but when it does their customer service absolutely stinks. I had an issue that went to 'Tier 2' months ago and still have never heard from anyone at Tier 2. I think it's just a ploy to get people to shut up.

I'll keep my T1 going as long as possible - but when it dies I don't know what I'll do. I don't want a Kindle, and I don't trust Kobo to stand behind their products.

Double sigh.

That, a thousand times that. First FW, now the Sony store... I just feel my choices are shrinking ever since I switched to ebooks. I won't argue they were the best choices but they were mine, and I'm pissed off I'm losing them. Also, I can't seem to find Analog and Asimov's on Kobo, so after the F&SF mess, it seems I am screwed. Again.

On a side note, the Sony store was the only place where it was easy for someone without an American credit card to sign up to. I'm wondering if my account switching to Kobo is going to raise some red flags.

[library addict]

I guess I lucked out that I only lost a few of my books from Fictionwise. I hadn't planned to even register at B&N, but then thought what the heck. I appreciated that they made many of the books I had purchased in LIT format available as ePub. It took some months before download links appeared on all of them and some have since gone away, so I'm glad I have those files backed up already.

The Borders to Kobo transfer didn't go very smoothly for me. Which was surprising since the Borders ebooks were "powered by Kobo" But it took a long while before the Borders books showed up in my Kobo library and I lost a few there too.

[cromag]

My FW books never made the jump to B&N either, but I always download any book I buy and sanitize it right away. (Not a problem for the FW move, since I only bought the DRM-free books.)

I also went on a binge at FW after the end was announced, using coupons to buy up any series I thought might interest me. I'm still reading through those books. That's not likely to be a factor for me at Sony, though, since their prices were never anything special.

But, seriously, they've given advance warning -- put your time to good use!

[Onemack]

Originally Posted by melmac

Did you already have a kobo account before the transition? Do you have to select the A&R login or can you just login at the regular kobo sign in page?

I already had a Kobo account, but It was rarely used with about four or five books in it. I just log straight into the Kobo sign in page and all my purchases from the other stores are there. Because I don't trust any of these operators I immediately downloaded all the books and placed them into Calibre.
I lost a lot of books bought in 2007/8/9 from a ebook store that closed called ebook crescent as well as another one whose name I cannot remember now but had a similar name. Unfortunately I did not do that in time with the US Sony store, believing that a large reputable organisation like that would not effectively steal my books from me.

At the time there were no ebook sellers based in Australia apart from Dymocks, whose prices were either dearer than the paperback equivalents or the same. Even though they sold two brands of ebook readers, talk about missed marketing opportunities.

[Fbone]

We lost Fictionwise, Books On Board and now Sony.

That leaves us Amazon, B&N, Apple, Kobo, Google and Diesel. The generic epub list does appear to have shrunk significantly.