eBOOKS FOR KOBO? - Page 2

rashkae · 03-04-2015, 12:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by darryl

The statement also seems to be implying that the book is in fact free of DRM. Direct download of drm free epubs with an express permission to read on other devices (and an implied one to convert the file to do so if necessary)? That would be a step in the right direction. But can it simply be an online store, or must a card be purchased from a bricks and mortar store? Which stores have these cards? And those terms and conditions remain terrible, irrespective of whether they are actually enforced.

I was able to buy directly on-line... The price was a bit higher than Kobo for the same book (about 20 cents difference). Though Jwolf has some much more extreme price differences.

The download was just as advertised, encryption free epub.

darryl · 03-04-2015, 12:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some of their prices are out of whack majorly.

Waking the Dead By Heather Graham
Enthrall: $21.99
Google Play; $4.99

French Pastry Murder by Leslie Meier
Entrall: $21.25
Amazon: $9.14

And there are plenty of more examples of this.

Does this remind you of any other Canadian based ebook store?

TechniSol · 03-04-2015, 12:13 AM

I suppose I could maybe see some simplified version of that working with a URL printed here and there or in an airport giftshop requiring nothing more than a poster with a URL. No inventory, no space requirements beyond a spot to tack up a poster. Better yet, airport waiting areas! Of course, you have to have better pricing or something else compelling to even get the average "ereader"(a delightfully incorrect use of the term...) to bother checking out your site, let alone want to trust you with a credit card transaction or the like(paypal).

OTOH, if you could supply some reason for them to check you out, like maybe offering free wifi for the user to go look at your site and check an email, etc. for a few minutes as long as they keep browsing... What could it really cost to put up a poster and get some company that already has a shop there to let you sponsor their FREE WIFI and thereby get your own thing off the ground? I would think such places would be ideal spots to sell ebooks, games and movies for a long flight or wait. Let's face it, unless you're a road warrior hellbent on working you probably need something to do in an airport while waiting for your flight or during a delay. But the real key would be to undersell the competition or offer something they can't or just don't -better than underselling, maybe that would be as simple as accepting program points from whatever airline or credit card program.

darryl · 03-04-2015, 01:26 AM

One of the biggest problems they face is apathy. The walled garden approach would not be so successful if a majority of people were actually prepared to buy elsewhere and sideload. I suspect possibly even the biggest challenge to this type of business model is to coax the masses out of their respective walled gardens. Also, convincing publishers to accept watermarking as sufficient without other DRM will be an interesting challenge.

rashkae · 03-04-2015, 02:37 PM

I think it's a good idea overall. Their target market is not website sales. It's adding e-books to B&M book stores. I know I'm increasingly in the minority, but I still enjoy browsing (or showrooming) in bookstores, but I always feel a little guilty when I go home and buy the book on-line instead, (or not buy, as the case may be, but that's whole other topic.) But after all the work it took to clear out my books, I'm just not interested in acquiring more paper books. I think it would be great if could buy the books that catch my eye in the store right there.

The big obstacle, of course, is getting publishers on board. Reading all the press releases, it looks like they've been doing this since 2012, but so far, it looks as though Open Road is their only ally. (and Harper Collins, testing a bit with books long past their prime.). And they are completely ignoring the entire Indie market, which you would have thought would be a natural fit for them to bolster their catalogue with.

I did take a moment of my day to check out Walmart. Indeed, even though I never noticed it before, there is a display next to the books with e-book gift cards I can buy.

jackastor · 03-04-2015, 02:54 PM

Show-Rooming... Did I Read that correctly, that's a valid point. I too like the look of the show room floor when I am book shopping and yes I tend to buy more eBooks then paper books, but I definitely do enjoy the look of a well maintained Show Room of the various treaties of the world by our worldly Authors. Its apparent though that buying a Book has changed in the last few years and the evolution of book buying is still evolving...

We live in Exciting times...

regards
Jack

shalym · 03-04-2015, 04:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Some of their prices are out of whack majorly.

Waking the Dead By Heather Graham
Enthrall: $21.99
Google Play; $4.99

French Pastry Murder by Leslie Meier
Entrall: $21.25
Amazon: $9.14

And there are plenty of more examples of this.

What are the prices for those books from Google and Amazon if someone is in Canada? Since this site is only set up to sell to people in Canada that could be the reason for the price difference.

When I tried to sign up for the site, it wouldn't even let me put in a US address, so I can't try it.

Shari

PeterT · 03-04-2015, 04:56 PM

Amazon:

Quote:

Waking the Dead (Cafferty & Quinn Novels) [Kindle Edition]
Heather Graham (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
Digital List Price: CDN$ 10.99 What's this?
Print List Price: CDN$ 8.99
Kindle Price: CDN$ 6.24 includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: CDN$ 2.75 (31%)

Quote:

French Pastry Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery Series) [Kindle Edition]
Leslie Meier (Author)
Be the first to review this item
Digital List Price: CDN$ 21.25 What's this?
Print List Price: CDN$ 27.95
Kindle Price: CDN$ 10.77 includes free international wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet
You Save: CDN$ 17.18 (61%)

Google:

Quote:

Waking the Dead $14.64

Quote:

French Pastry Murder $10.77

Kobo Books:

Quote:

Two editions!
Waking the Dead
$9.89 (ISBN 9781460330487, MIRA)
$19.49 (ISBN 9781460328590, Harlequin MIRA)

Quote:

French Pastry Murder
$18.09 (ISBN 9780758277060, Kensington)

jackastor · 03-05-2015, 03:52 PM

Well I took the plunge and bought the book. "The Body Box" by Lynn Abercrombie. Downloaded to computer and sideloaded not touched by calibre. Looks ok but the cover shows on my h20 as the previously stated this book has been formatted for. My email addy. No issue there. Gonna tweak it in Calibre and set the cover correctly. Cover shows perfectly in iBooks so not sure y kobo messes that up. No worries easily corrected. Pages show more in iBooks than on the kobo.

Regards

Jack

rashkae · 03-05-2015, 07:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackastor

Well I took the plunge and bought the book. "The Body Box" by Lynn Abercrombie. Downloaded to computer and sideloaded not touched by calibre. Looks ok but the cover shows on my h20 as the previously stated this book has been formatted for. My email addy. No issue there. Gonna tweak it in Calibre and set the cover correctly. Cover shows perfectly in iBooks so not sure y kobo messes that up. No worries easily corrected. Pages show more in iBooks than on the kobo.

Regards

Jack

That made me look at my own book more closely. I'm sorry for getting technical, but the guide section of the opf has no cover defined. Kobo is doing exactly the right thing by taking the first displayed page as the 'cover'. The real question is, why are Calibre and Ibooks able to correctly figure out the real cover. (I guess a file named Cover.html kind of gives it away, but technically, the filename can be arbitrary.)

JSWolf · 03-05-2015, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashkae

That made me look at my own book more closely. I'm sorry for getting technical, but the guide section of the opf has no cover defined. Kobo is doing exactly the right thing by taking the first displayed page as the 'cover'. The real question is, why are Calibre and Ibooks able to correctly figure out the real cover. (I guess a file named Cover.html kind of gives it away, but technically, the filename can be arbitrary.)

Some programs pick up the cover from the first displayed page like Sony did. Some use a metdata tag to get which image is the cover image. So chances are the metadata tag for the cover is incorrect. I've seen this before with some retail ePub.

davidfor · 03-05-2015, 11:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rashkae

That made me look at my own book more closely. I'm sorry for getting technical, but the guide section of the opf has no cover defined. Kobo is doing exactly the right thing by taking the first displayed page as the 'cover'. The real question is, why are Calibre and Ibooks able to correctly figure out the real cover. (I guess a file named Cover.html kind of gives it away, but technically, the filename can be arbitrary.)

Yes, for ePub, PDF and MOBI, the Kobo firmware render the first page and use that as the cover. For kepub, the cover image is marked with an attribute in the OPF.

Calibre tries to find an image in the epub. And it makes an educated guess to find an image. There are some attributes in the OPF it uses, then it goes by name. That usually means if there is a "cover.jpg" in the epub, it will probably be used. And if all else fails, it can render the first page and use that. For other formats, it depends. From memory, PDF is the first page but I assume the "Kindle" formats, the image is extracted if possible.

jackastor · 03-07-2015, 03:45 PM

So hey yeah that book I purchased from enthrill, I was able to download directly to my Aura h20. I like that option.

Regards

Jack

jackastor · 03-12-2015, 02:45 PM

Looks like Walmart has partnered with Enthrill books.

https://ebooks.walmart.ca/

Interesting to see something like this happen.. How long before everyone else jumps on board.

regards

Jack

03-04-2015, 12:13 AM	#18
TechniSol GranPohbah-Fezzes r cool! Posts: 1,056 Karma: 3151024 Join Date: Jul 2010 Device: Nook STRs, Kobo Touch, Kobo Glo	I suppose I could maybe see some simplified version of that working with a URL printed here and there or in an airport giftshop requiring nothing more than a poster with a URL. No inventory, no space requirements beyond a spot to tack up a poster. Better yet, airport waiting areas! Of course, you have to have better pricing or something else compelling to even get the average "ereader"(a delightfully incorrect use of the term...) to bother checking out your site, let alone want to trust you with a credit card transaction or the like(paypal). OTOH, if you could supply some reason for them to check you out, like maybe offering free wifi for the user to go look at your site and check an email, etc. for a few minutes as long as they keep browsing... What could it really cost to put up a poster and get some company that already has a shop there to let you sponsor their FREE WIFI and thereby get your own thing off the ground? I would think such places would be ideal spots to sell ebooks, games and movies for a long flight or wait. Let's face it, unless you're a road warrior hellbent on working you probably need something to do in an airport while waiting for your flight or during a delay. But the real key would be to undersell the competition or offer something they can't or just don't -better than underselling, maybe that would be as simple as accepting program points from whatever airline or credit card program. Last edited by TechniSol; 03-04-2015 at 12:18 AM.

03-07-2015, 03:45 PM	#28
jackastor Wizard Posts: 1,847 Karma: 3212428 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: iphone stanza, kobo touch,ASUS TF300,KOBO GLO, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Mini	interestingly So hey yeah that book I purchased from enthrill, I was able to download directly to my Aura h20. I like that option. Regards Jack

03-12-2015, 02:45 PM	#29
jackastor Wizard Posts: 1,847 Karma: 3212428 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: iphone stanza, kobo touch,ASUS TF300,KOBO GLO, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Mini	Walmart now selling Ebooks... Looks like Walmart has partnered with Enthrill books. https://ebooks.walmart.ca/ Interesting to see something like this happen.. How long before everyone else jumps on board. regards Jack

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03-04-2015, 01:26 AM	#19
darryl Wizard Posts: 3,108 Karma: 60231510 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: Australia Device: Kobo Aura H2O, Kindle Oasis, Huwei Ascend Mate 7	One of the biggest problems they face is apathy. The walled garden approach would not be so successful if a majority of people were actually prepared to buy elsewhere and sideload. I suspect possibly even the biggest challenge to this type of business model is to coax the masses out of their respective walled gardens. Also, convincing publishers to accept watermarking as sufficient without other DRM will be an interesting challenge.

03-04-2015, 02:37 PM	#20
rashkae Wizard Posts: 1,274 Karma: 5935030 Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Ontario, Canada Device: Kobo Aura HD	I think it's a good idea overall. Their target market is not website sales. It's adding e-books to B&M book stores. I know I'm increasingly in the minority, but I still enjoy browsing (or showrooming) in bookstores, but I always feel a little guilty when I go home and buy the book on-line instead, (or not buy, as the case may be, but that's whole other topic.) But after all the work it took to clear out my books, I'm just not interested in acquiring more paper books. I think it would be great if could buy the books that catch my eye in the store right there. The big obstacle, of course, is getting publishers on board. Reading all the press releases, it looks like they've been doing this since 2012, but so far, it looks as though Open Road is their only ally. (and Harper Collins, testing a bit with books long past their prime.). And they are completely ignoring the entire Indie market, which you would have thought would be a natural fit for them to bolster their catalogue with. I did take a moment of my day to check out Walmart. Indeed, even though I never noticed it before, there is a display next to the books with e-book gift cards I can buy.

03-04-2015, 02:54 PM	#21
jackastor Wizard Posts: 1,847 Karma: 3212428 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: iphone stanza, kobo touch,ASUS TF300,KOBO GLO, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Mini	Show-Rooming... Did I Read that correctly, that's a valid point. I too like the look of the show room floor when I am book shopping and yes I tend to buy more eBooks then paper books, but I definitely do enjoy the look of a well maintained Show Room of the various treaties of the world by our worldly Authors. Its apparent though that buying a Book has changed in the last few years and the evolution of book buying is still evolving... We live in Exciting times... regards Jack

03-05-2015, 03:52 PM	#24
jackastor Wizard Posts: 1,847 Karma: 3212428 Join Date: Jun 2011 Device: iphone stanza, kobo touch,ASUS TF300,KOBO GLO, Kobo Aura HD, Kobo Mini	Well I took the plunge and bought the book. "The Body Box" by Lynn Abercrombie. Downloaded to computer and sideloaded not touched by calibre. Looks ok but the cover shows on my h20 as the previously stated this book has been formatted for. My email addy. No issue there. Gonna tweak it in Calibre and set the cover correctly. Cover shows perfectly in iBooks so not sure y kobo messes that up. No worries easily corrected. Pages show more in iBooks than on the kobo. Regards Jack

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