Amazon and DRM changes

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps if there were more books on Amazon that were not in KDP Select so the only place to purchase them is Amazon, that might be more surprising to people. As it is, the choices are either to purchase from Amazon or to locate a pirate copy and, to me, the second choice is not a choice I will make.

There's another obvious choice you overlooked.

Originally Posted by DNSB

As for diddling? Other than library loans, very few books arrive on my Kobo ereaders without a trip through various utilities and a final touchup in Sigil so not a biggie to me. Converting AZW3/KF8 to epub is also not a big deal thanks to DiapDealer and KindleUnpack. Did I remember to say thanks for your work on calibre plugins and Sigil?

Labors of love (even though I rarely use them--the plugins--myself any more).

[salamanderjuice]

I'd buy from Amazon Japan because they were generally more generous with points back on eBooks than Rakuten (kinda like cashback), some of the manga series I read also would be delivered in noticably higher quality for whatever reason and crisper kanji is just easier to read. Since you can't have two accounts on one Kindle I had to DeDRM the books anyways even when I had a Kindle to read both English and Japanese books on the same device.

But since they implemented the DRM change I won't be buying anymore from them.

[NullNix]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's certainly more than half. Mostly phones.

Yeah. Of course, part of that is Amazon's fault. I know several Kindle readers who recently switched to phones because they couldn't make head or tail of the horribly inconsistent new post-5.10 Kindle UI (I mean they literally couldn't figure out how to tell if a book was downloaded or switch books), and they seem most unlikely ever to buy a Kindle again now Amazon has uselessified something they spent a nontrivial amount of money on. Way to own goal, Amazon.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by jhlovestoread

This is very interesting. What is it about an ebook and the way it's been formatted that you do not like that you need to reformat all ebooks before reading them? I'm genuinely curious since I mostly just read via the Kindle app and I get what I get.

I remove left/right margins, unusual base font size, spaces between ordinary paragraphs, line height, embedded base font and change the paragraph indents to 1em. I also delete ads and excerpts from other books. Sometimes I fix the TOC.

I use the calibre editor to do this, not Sigil. And usually it takes a few minutes per book.

Of course I also fix the metadata - title, author, series info, synopsis, cover.

[lkmiller]

In addition to being surprised that some people buy mostly or exclusively from Amazon when they read on a non-Kindle device/app, more people buy ebooks on release than I realized. I'm just starting to get to things released last year! It will be quite some time before I need to look at using download & transfer instead of Kindle for PC 1.17.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

In addition to being surprised that some people buy mostly or exclusively from Amazon when they read on a non-Kindle device/app, more people buy ebooks on release than I realized. I'm just starting to get to things released last year! It will be quite some time before I need to look at using download & transfer instead of Kindle for PC 1.17.

I buy indies on release (not always, of course), but not tradpubs, unless the release price is less than 10€. Indie prices seldom change considerably later, so why wait.

[lkmiller]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I buy indies on release (not always, of course), but not tradpubs, unless the release price is less than 10€. Indie prices seldom change considerably later, so why wait.

I can see that. I just have so many things to read already that I usually just put new or upcoming things on a wishlist. Buy when I see them on sale or when I decide to read them.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

I can see that. I just have so many things to read already that I usually just put new or upcoming things on a wishlist. Buy when I see them on sale or when I decide to read them.

Well, I'm a hoarder. The amount of unread books in my library is a couple of hundred years long, but that doesn't stop me from constantly buying new books.

[Quoth]

Having a choice is the whole point of building a library, being able to choose what suits your energy, mood, or how stressed you are etc.

That's what's nice about the 32 G ereaders, being able to chose without connecting to PC or Internet. Though 8G is very ample if no scanned PDFs or comics etc.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by lkmiller

...more people buy ebooks on release than I realized.

There's a small publisher I like (Piccadilly Publishing) and while I don't buy everything they publish, when they do put out a new book I'm interested in, I buy it right away. Their stuff doesn't often go on sale as it is priced around $3 to begin with and I just want to support them.

Same for some indie authors and I often (though not always) buy whatever new stuff Stephen King has available.

[ottischwenk]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Having a choice is the whole point of building a library, being able to choose what suits your energy, mood, or how stressed you are etc.

That's what's nice about the 32 G ereaders, being able to chose without connecting to PC or Internet. Though 8G is very ample if no scanned PDFs or comics etc.

I prefer devices with an SD card - I use a 1 TB in my TabUltra, 512 GB in Leaf 2, ...

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Terisa de morgan

Yes.... and AllRomance... and Samhain...

BooksOnBoard

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by NullNix

Yeah. Of course, part of that is Amazon's fault. I know several Kindle readers who recently switched to phones because they couldn't make head or tail of the horribly inconsistent new post-5.10 Kindle UI (I mean they literally couldn't figure out how to tell if a book was downloaded or switch books), and they seem most unlikely ever to buy a Kindle again now Amazon has uselessified something they spent a nontrivial amount of money on. Way to own goal, Amazon.

My 80-year old mother-in-law has a PW5 with the current firmware and she's managing no problem or I'd know about it.

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

There's a small publisher I like (Piccadilly Publishing) and while I don't buy everything they publish, when they do put out a new book I'm interested in, I buy it right away. Their stuff doesn't often go on sale as it is priced around $3 to begin with and I just want to support them.

Same for some indie authors and I often (though not always) buy whatever new stuff Stephen King has available.

Could we have a link to that?

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

Could we have a link to that?

Piccadilly Publishing? Sure. Piccadilly Publishing

They specialize in republishing old Euro westerns from the 1970's written by a group that called themselves the Piccadilly Cowboys (because they had never been further west than Piccadilly Circus). In paperback, those old books are collectable and some are expensive. It's great seeing them brought back as ebooks and sold cheaply. This phenomena is my favorite thing about ebooks.

Piccadilly Publishing have branched out into old crime, war and schlock. Honestly, I wouldn't figure many here would have an interest in their stuff.

The Bodie the Stalker books are my favorites of theirs.