Sainsbury's ebook store bites the dust

[MickiTee]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

The £10 credit from the Sainsbury's transfer expires at the end of 2016.

https://store.kobobooks.com/p/sainsburysebooks

I hadn't got as far as checking to see if there was an expiry date. Still seven weeks until the end of the year.

[bookaho!ic]

does anyone have a definitive date of when the credit runs out ?

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by bookaho!ic

does anyone have a definitive date of when the credit runs out ?

Yes, Kobo says:

The credit will be automatically added to your account and will expire on December 31st, 2016.

[lkmiller]

Yeah, transfer happened before I hardly knew it! All one book plus $13.13 US credit.

[bookaho!ic]

thank you it was a shock to me went to buy a book and saw the credit so have 9.41 left mmm what to buy

[simond]

Yep, mine went through, merged both of my Sainsburys accounts into a single Kobo account and ended up with £20 store credit, not bad at all as apparently all my books transferred too.

[Josieb1]

I was a Fictionwise customer that transferred to Nook UK. That transfer went okay and all 175 books transferred over. Then Nook transferred to Sainsburys. From that point on I dropped through the cracks, probably because the genre I read, MM Romance, was not sold by Sainsburys.

Sainsburys manually opened an account for me as the Nook Transfer didn't seem to go through but no books transfered from Nook to Sainsburys. Sainsburys gave me a £5 Credit which turned out to be invalid. Now, again I assume as Sainsburys won't reply to me, I am ignored for the transfer to Kobo, I can only guess because I have no books with them. But I do have an account.

I can't say i'm surprised, a bit miffed tbh, to all intents and purposes I lost the account with my books once Nook closed. I didn't as they are in Calibre, but I have never received a penny from anyone for the hassle.

A real life lesson on why its imperative to back up books outside of whatever company holds the account. For an account to be transferred 3 times and the customer to end up with nothing

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

I was a Fictionwise customer that transferred to Nook UK. That transfer went okay and all 175 books transferred over. Then Nook transferred to Sainsburys. From that point on I dropped through the cracks, probably because the genre I read, MM Romance, was not sold by Sainsburys.

As I found out, eventually, the transfer from nook to Sainsbury, deliberately did not include any books from Fictionwise, only those bought at B&N/nook.

I did, of course, have DRM-free backups of everything, but it is still annoying.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

Sainsburys gave me a £5 Credit which turned out to be invalid.

I can't find the emails I got when Nook transferred to Sainsbury's, but I vaguely remember spending some credit shortly afterwards. Are you sure the credit didn't just expire?

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

I can't find the emails I got when Nook transferred to Sainsbury's, but I vaguely remember spending some credit shortly afterwards. Are you sure the credit didn't just expire?

It probably expired. Sainsbury's don't sell the ebooks I read so I gave up looking for something to buy. By the time I mentioned it to my husband it was too late.

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

As I found out, eventually, the transfer from nook to Sainsbury, deliberately did not include any books from Fictionwise, only those bought at B&N/nook.

I did, of course, have DRM-free backups of everything, but it is still annoying.

That was probably the main cause nothing of mine transferred to Sainsbury's, but even if they had tried to Sainsbury's didn't sell any MM romance books (LGBTI) so it's a mute point.

But surely customers (and book libraries) shouldn't be treated like this, transferred from one company to another without any thought and consideration. Does it take a big player like Kobo or Amazon to fail (not that I expect them to) to get some laws protecting digital libraries.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

But surely customers (and book libraries) shouldn't be treated like this, transferred from one company to another without any thought and consideration. Does it take a big player like Kobo or Amazon to fail (not that I expect them to) to get some laws protecting digital libraries.

I really don't see the issue as long as they're ePub books. Such books are locked to an Adobe account, not a specific device, so as long as you keep the books safe, they aren't going to disappear. I certainly don't see that there's any onus on the bookstore to keep the files for you: keeping your data safely backed up is your responsibility, not theirs.

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by Josieb1

But surely customers (and book libraries) shouldn't be treated like this, transferred from one company to another without any thought and consideration. Does it take a big player like Kobo or Amazon to fail (not that I expect them to) to get some laws protecting digital libraries.

I think they do put in plenty of thought and consideration. Not to the extent of ensuring that the new store sells the sort of book you like to buy - which would be pretty hard - but there are legal issues such as data protection. If you look at the way Sainsbury's worded things:

By choosing to transfer your eBooks to Kobo you’ll ensure continued access to as many of your purchased eBooks as possible after our site closes on 30th November 2016

You can transfer your Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand eBook library to Kobo by following these two simple steps.

1. Visit the link below and follow the instructions on the page. This link is customized to you and should not be shared with anyone else.
CLICK OR TAP HERE TO BEGIN TRANSFERRING YOUR LIBRARY

2. Create your new account with Kobo or log in to your existing Kobo account and agree to the transfer Terms and Conditions

By visiting the above link and following the two steps you will be agreeing to Kobo’s terms and conditions, including their privacy policy on Kobo’s use of your personal data, and consenting to the transfer of your Sainsbury’s Entertainment on Demand eBook library to Kobo.

I think you can see that you can opt out if you want to, and if you opt in there are Ts&Cs specific to Kobo.

Stores have simply closed down in the past without transferring customers and books elsewhere haven't they? What happened then?

[chrisridd]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I really don't see the issue as long as they're ePub books. Such books are locked to an Adobe account, not a specific device, so as long as you keep the books safe, they aren't going to disappear. I certainly don't see that there's any onus on the bookstore to keep the files for you: keeping your data safely backed up is your responsibility, not theirs.

So there's actually a single point of failure in the whole ecosystem - Adobe. What happens if Adobe decides their epub drm tax isn't worth collecting any more, or they go bust and their servers are turned off?

Kobo might be in a better position than most surviving stores as they've got their own home-brew DRM as well as Adobe's.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by chrisridd

So there's actually a single point of failure in the whole ecosystem - Adobe. What happens if Adobe decides their epub drm tax isn't worth collecting any more, or they go bust and their servers are turned off?

The same thing that would happen if Amazon were to go bust. Both are probably low probability events, but all the more reason to take control of your own books.