geographic restrictions at Fictionwise

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

It is not just the publishers, it is also European governments who want to collect the tax on your online purchase.

And I do not have a problem with paying tax to the European governments on purchases I have made from there.

I personally think the publishing industry is shooting themselves in the foot. I can buy a book here in Australia, or buy from overseas the identical book far cheaper, no restrictions, but I can't buy an ebook of a paper-back which is for sale here in Australia because of geographic restrictions. I don't understand why not. It is not like the local retailers are missing out, there is no real local ebook market, and given the price of locally sold books I really think twice before buying locally.

Two things IMHO will happen if the publishers continue down their current path.

1) Ebooks will become far too difficult for people to buy. Too many locally available pbooks will be restricted as an ebook, and workarounds for geographic restrictions will become too much work. So overall people will reduce the number buying (well outside the US anyway).
2) Because of #1 there will be an increase of pirated copies. If people can't buy and they really want something thou shall copy.

My 2 cents.

Edit: No need for a new post. Part of me would like to respect geographic restrictions. Perhaps to help me with this process ebook stores should provide as part of their search facility the option to only display results for books available to your account ie: your geographic region. I'm finding nothing worse than tracking down books ready to buy, build up my cart then find when trying to pay for them that half of them are restricted.

[unicorn23]

Fictionwise is acquired by Barnes and Noble, and suddenly there are so many more geographic restrictions than there were before - strange coincidence, that . l'm ready to throw things from sheer frustration, and it's made so much worse by the fact that you don't actually know that GR's are in place until you have the temerity to want to give FW your money

I seriously doubt that I will be renewing my club membership when it expires. Hey, FW people, do you realise how badly you are alienating your non-US buyers (and there are an awful lot of us out here). Anyone care to speculate on how long FW will manage to survive if it continues to annoy their buyers this way?

[aceflor]

I am too convinced Fictionwise politics changed as soon as B&N acquired them.

My membership ends in March, and not only will I not renew it, but I made sure since Friday to bring my Micropay account down to zero. That's it for me, really, I am done with Fictionwise. I hated their new NYBestsellers pricing anyway, it is really a scam. I am not sure, considering B&N started selling ebooks too (only in the US, but apparently the other markets are not interesting for american booksellers), that it is not a way of integrating Fictionwise as quickly as possible aka letting it die and transferring all existing US memberships to B&N. Other memberships are probably very valuable too, but too complicated in the handling due to the editor's restrictions, and B&N does not give the impression of wanting the fuss. So I'll oblige gracefully and won't give them my $.

For my part, I'll stick to Books on Board and Kindle, at least amazon is clear regarding its pricing (it's almost always 9.99 or less).

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

And I do not have a problem with paying tax to the European governments on purchases I have made from there.

You do not have to do that. But you have to pay the VAT or similar tax for your country.

I wonder if VAT is the reason why the rules for were the transaction takes place is different for paper books compare to electronic books. For paper books ordered from abroad the package have to pass the custom were VAT can be added. For electronic books there are not such mechanism. So selling ebooks on an SD card might be the same as selling a paper book since the package will pass custom.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by tompe

You do not have to do that. But you have to pay the VAT or similar tax for your country.

I wonder if VAT is the reason why the rules for were the transaction takes place is different for paper books compare to electronic books. For paper books ordered from abroad the package have to pass the custom were VAT can be added. For electronic books there are not such mechanism. So selling ebooks on an SD card might be the same as selling a paper book since the package will pass custom.

About VAT here...

Pbooks have a 6% VAT. Ebooks have a 19% VAT. Ebooks aren't books according to our law, but a service. If you buy a CD with ebook content, you pay 6%, not 19% because you buy a physical thing. This is so screwed up...

If you buy a non-physical thing from outside the EU, it's possible you don't have the pay the VAT, because the VAT is payed over physical goods...

[kennyc]

Can't we all just get along?

[Sweetpea]

Apparently not

[kennyc]

It's kinda crazy -- talk of world markets and multinational corporations, yet there seems to be tremendous barriers all around to restrict/prevent it.

Mr. Gorbachev....uh...Mr. Governments TEAR DOWN THESE WALLS!

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by kennyc

It's kinda crazy -- talk of world markets and multinational corporations, yet there seems to be tremendous barriers all around to restrict/prevent it.

Mr. Gorbachev....uh...Mr. Governments TEAR DOWN THESE WALLS!

Yeah. Large multinational proponents of capitalism don't actually want it.

[Tulkas]

This issue isn't going to go away (at least for the forseeable) and there's also speculation that Amazon wants to let mobipocket wither and die, so I suppose the question is what format to buy/convert to which is futureproofed.

PDF? ePUB? Do either of these allow you to bookmark? Can PDF resize text or is still reliant on 'zooming'? Are there convertors mobi -> new format? (All my mobipocket books are DRM-Free or DeDRM'd.

Comments/suggests...

[brecklundin]

Originally Posted by Tulkas

This issue isn't going to go away (at least for the forseeable) and there's also speculation that Amazon wants to let mobipocket wither and die, so I suppose the question is what format to buy/convert to which is futureproofed.

PDF? ePUB? Do either of these allow you to bookmark? Can PDF resize text or is still reliant on 'zooming'? Are there convertors mobi -> new format? (All my mobipocket books are DRM-Free or DeDRM'd.

Comments/suggests...

well, it is not as if your reader software will suddenly stop reading mobi format (saving the whole firmware thing with, oh I forget what reader when it did indeed drop mobi in a FW update), so you can still read your books.

And look for Calibre as a nice format converter, for the most part, & library manager.

[Tulkas]

I'm having a play with Calibre at the moment ~ pretty clever ~ first attempt converting to pdf didn't embed the pictures (cover etc) though but I presume this may just be an option I've missed.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Yeah. Large multinational proponents of capitalism don't actually want it.

the anti-globalism crowd is usually unions, etc. Large corporations only benefit from it -- as do consumers.

[Blue Tyson]

Yes, but the media companies are anti-globalism.

[unicorn23]

Originally Posted by aceflor

For my part, I'll stick to Books on Board and Kindle, at least amazon is clear regarding its pricing (it's almost always 9.99 or less).

Hey aceflor

I'm curious how you manage to obtain Kindle ebooks - as far as I was aware, you couldn't get them without a Kindle, and you can't either ebook or Kindle device outside the U.S. (I thought!). Nice trick, if you'd care to share your secrets...