Purchasing books from a different country - how easy?

[cons013]

I am considering a paperwhite but need to find out something first. Has anyone here had experience switching between countries to purchase books? I need to be able to purchase Japanese content, and I'm in Australia. My amazon account has an Australian and Japanese address on it, so I just need to know if I can buy the book on pc [I won't be using the kindle store on the device itself] and easily sync it. Or, do I need to logout and switch to a new Japanese account? Will my books get deleted?

[Josieb1]

Originally Posted by cons013

I am considering a paperwhite but need to find out something first. Has anyone here had experience switching between countries to purchase books? I need to be able to purchase Japanese content, and I'm in Australia. My amazon account has an Australian and Japanese address on it, so I just need to know if I can buy the book on pc [I won't be using the kindle store on the device itself] and easily sync it. Or, do I need to logout and switch to a new Japanese account? Will my books get deleted?

I’m in the UK and have switched my Kindle account to the US using the US address I have on my UK Amazon account. I then buy books in the US store and then switch my Kindle address back to my UK address, the books come with me. I don’t know if it will be that easy between Australia and Japan.

Do you use ALF to liberate your ebooks? If you do would just buying them via your pc, downloading them, passing through Calibre, and transferring via USB be simpler. The problem with switching Kindle countries is that if Amazon catch on it may cause problems on your Australian account. I only do it very rarely, and only when I am desperate.

[AnemicOak]

I know some have had success doing this, but when I tried to go the UK route from the US I got this note from Amazon. Never tried anything after that as it's so easy to "travel" with Kobo if I wanted to.

Hello from Amazon.

We are writing because the home country registered to your Kindle account may not match your country of residence. Due to publishing rights, the home country registered to your account must match your country of residence.

To continue purchasing titles available for United Kingdom, please send a copy of your valid government-issued identity card, passport, or a utility bill received within the previous 90 days to our secure fax line:

Within the UK: 020 8636 9326
Outside the UK: +44 (0) 20 8636 9326

For your security, you may obscure the passport, ID, or account number. However, we ask that you do not obscure any portion of your name, your address, or any expiration or statement dates.

Your fax will be converted to a secure electronic image that will never be printed. Once we have completed the verification process, we will delete the image.

If you have moved to a different country, you can update your home country in the Manage Your Kindle section of your Amazon account (www.amazon.co.uk/manageyourkindle):

1. Login to amazon.co.uk/manageyourkindle.
2. Click "Country Settings."
3. Click "Change."
4. Choose an existing home address from your account or enter a new one.
5. Click “Update.”

We may restrict your home country setting if you continue to purchase from the catalog of titles for United Kingdom without completing the verification process.

We appreciate your cooperation.

Best regards,
Account Specialist
Amazon.co.uk
Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/your-account

We may restrict your home country setting...

We appreciate your cooperation.

Best regards,
Account Specialist
Amazon.co.uk
Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.

I love the smell of irony in the morning.

[cons013]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

I know some have had success doing this, but when I tried to go the UK route from the US I got this note from Amazon. Never tried anything after that as it's so easy to "travel" with Kobo if I wanted to.

Well then... definitely not going with kindle. Kobo it is then

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by cons013

Well then... definitely not going with kindle. Kobo it is then

The problem isn't Kindle or Amazon. It's the unjust laws protecting publishers. Books can only be sold in the U.S. by publishing companies in the U.S. A book that sells in five developed countries will have five different publishers who may be related.

I'm not a lawyer, thankfully, but that's my understanding. Amazon practices what is called "due diligence" in following the law. In my case, they can say, "His bank card is a U.S. bank, the billing address is in the U.S., and he apparently travels a lot.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by patrickt

The problem isn't Kindle or Amazon. It's the unjust laws protecting publishers. Books can only be sold in the U.S. by publishing companies in the U.S. A book that sells in five developed countries will have five different publishers who may be related.

This is totally incorrect. A book can be sold in whatever regions the contract between the author and the publisher says it can be sold in. The publisher may have world-wide publishing rights or it may have rights that are restricted to one or more specific countries. The publisher may have exclusive rights, or the author may be free to sell the book through other channels, too. These are not "unjust laws", but simply contractual obligations.

[ametzler]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is totally incorrect. A book can be sold in whatever regions the contract between the author and the publisher says it can be sold in. The publisher may have world-wide publishing rights or it may have rights that are restricted to one or more specific countries. The publisher may have exclusive rights, or the author may be free to sell the book through other channels, too. These are not "unjust laws", but simply contractual obligations.

Yes, but. With the current setup we end up with books that are available as paper books on the whole globe (thanks, amazon), but the e-book version is only available in the US. I think that is absurd. Digital content would be transferable without shipping cost, but shopping for digital content outside one's home country is made impossible.

[stumped]

The tricky problem here, and with buying other out of region stuff like movies, TV streams. Is that often you need a new address and and USA issued payment card.
It is simple to fake being in the USA, with a VPN.
And There are sites that help create a fake address with a valid zip code, which will do if you never need physical goods to be shipped.
Getting a USA payment method is harder and more costly, though there are virtual cards and gift card solutions if you simply must buy whatever it is.
That's the point at which unusually give up. I resent paying a hefty middle man mark up.
PayPal may work but even PayPal have regional checks to circumvent

And netflix is like fort Knox nowadays, when it comes to accessing netflix USA from elsewhere

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by HarryT

This is totally incorrect. A book can be sold in whatever regions the contract between the author and the publisher says it can be sold in. The publisher may have world-wide publishing rights or it may have rights that are restricted to one or more specific countries. The publisher may have exclusive rights, or the author may be free to sell the book through other channels, too. These are not "unjust laws", but simply contractual obligations.

My understanding was incorrect. And I suppose if you're a lawyer you might consider the contractual obligations to be simple.

This site has an article by a lawyer who is an author. It doesn't seem simple to me.
https://www.mindyklasky.com/index.ph...torial-rights/

So, now I wonder why Amazon can sell a paperback and mail it to me in Mexico but they cannot sell me a specific ebook and send it to me in Mexico. Years ago when I asked if I could order books if I lived in Mexico, Amazon said I could not order from Amazon.com.

[Quoth]

Amazon isn't the ONLY company selling eBooks that work on a Kindle. They are very arrogant. I check www.smashwords.com too. My own titles are sold via Amazon (kindle only), Smashwords (all common eReaders/formats, no DRM), Barnes&Noble Nook, Kobo, Apple iBooks etc.
Calibre will easily convert to Mobi (old Kindles) or AZW (later kindles, enhanced typography) if there is no DRM. If you legitimately bought a book and are outside the USA there are DRM removal solutions to enable your reading rights under non-USA international copyright treaties.

I too, being in Ireland (Euro) and FORCED by Amazon to ONLY use UK store (Sterling) for ALL eBooks and many other items am very unhappy about their policies. On physical items I hardly ever know shipping price (or if it can shipped at all!) till final stage of checkout.
Part of it is Publisher rights are "chopped up" by region, almost a Cartel agreement and part of it is sheer Amazon stupidity.
Also I can't easily loan a registered Kindle (or tablet/phone with Amazon app) without risk due to stupid account design intended to make it easy to buy and control content.

[murraypaul]

I'm in the UK and buy eBooks from US Amazon all the time. I have separate UK and US Amazon account with different email addresses. It may be that I've had the accounts for so long that I'm grandfathered in, and that if you tried to set an account up now there would be more checks. They accept a UK credit card for buying US books.
That works fine if you are going to be downloading the books and importing them into Calibre anyway, but would be a pain in neck if you wanted to be able to access them directly from a Kindle device, as you would need to keep de- and re- registering it with the correct email address for the book you wanted to read.

Originally Posted by murraypaul

It may be that I've had the accounts for so long that I'm grandfathered in, and that if you tried to set an account up now there would be more checks. .

I think there may be some truth to this. I've had a US Amazon account since 2002 at least (so my order history informed me, to my surprise), and caved in 3 years ago to their repeated "go Aus" urgings, but I swapped back to my original US account without any difficulty

[sakurako]

I'm not sure, but my own experience, I switched from Japanese Amazon and English Amazon with different account.

Each time we can only use one account, and once account logging out, contents will be deleted at the same time (but will be still saved there in our Kindle cloud).

[Victoria]

Originally Posted by stuartjmz

I think there may be some truth to this. I've had a US Amazon account since 2002 at least (so my order history informed me, to my surprise), and caved in 3 years ago to their repeated "go Aus" urgings, but I swapped back to my original US account without any difficulty

Me too. I’m in Canada, and I registered in the US years ago, because neither the kindle or ebooks were available in Canada at the time. Amazon occasionally suggests that I switch to the Canadian site, but I stick with the US, due to their large selection.

I’ve noticed that my US purchase price drops when our Canadian dollar is poor, so I’m not disadvantaged by the exchange rate. They know I’m Canadian, and give me the benefit of whichever price is lowest. Pretty darn good of them. The only hiccup is that I (very) occasionally run into a book that isn’t available to me, as a Canadian.