Not in USA and fed up?

[Quoth]

The problem is if you want a specific book NOT on Amazon UK, or Amazon somewhere else.
Smashwords has a great range of books, so has Gutenberg. Sometimes I (or someone else in <insert country> wants a specific book, so I have to buy it on Amazon and the SAME books are not on all marketplaces. Sometimes in error and sometimes a "Rights" issue and sometimes even local censorship (though that's not likely in the UK).

Also I don't even live in the UK, yet my main Kindle, if registered to my real outside UK address, can only be used to purchase Kindle ebooks in a different currency to my own and only on amazon.co.uk, so I think it's reasonable to buy the book that's not on Amazon.co.uk anywhere that has it. Piracy isn't reasonable. Some other marketplaces are worse for English titles, yet the Kindle owner might be a native English speaker originating years previously from SA, Australia, Nagaland India, Canada, Patagonia, USA, N.Z., Ireland etc. Or be from / in Scandinavia, Netherlands, Germany, Iceland, Malta, Cyprus, Israel, Hong Kong etc and want to read in English because there is no translation to their native language, or the translation is not good and they are practically bilingual with English.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Barbara1955

FrustratedReader This may explain whats going on.... Amazon has no control over BUT IF you contact them & explain the problem I betting they Get with the Current market.... https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36611512

That's got nothing to do with book availability in any particular market place.

However ever since the Irish Punt separated from Sterling (not many years before the Euro as from 1922 the Irish Pound was based on Sterling), Irish consumers have been parasitised by currency hedging of UK Import/Export and Irish Importers. UK wholesale imports and hedges Euro to Sterling, inflating cost. Then they export in Euro or Dollars, hedging again! Then Irish retailers (dominated by UK wholesale) often have to buy in Sterling and Hedge. Over the last 11 years the Sterling <-> Euro market rate has varied from 1.46 Euro per Pound (terrible for import, good for export to UK) to 1.05 Euro per Pound. (great for imports, terrible for exports, wiped out most of Irish Mushroom Production).

Amazon books can be priced by Publisher as often as they like, daily, in local marketplace currencies, or based on Amazon's idea of Dollar exchange rates. I spend my Royalties in Euro and Dollar - Euro rate is reasonably stable. A huge amount of Sterling speculation at the minute.

Publishers, not Amazon decide, on DRM (or not), pricing and availability per marketplace.

There is nothing unethical about buying an ebook with real money no matter where you are. Amazon only needs a physical address for physical purchases. Real accommodation addresses to take advantage of bulk shipping are ancient and legal. eBay Global Shipping Program. Also China Post and Irish An Post operate accomodation addresses to reduce shipping costs. You still have to pay Irish VAT and Customs duty (if applicable) and may end up paying an extra local sales tax too. No-one is losing out, except maybe shipping companies on physical orders, but I doubt it as they can do groupage more profitably than small individual parcels.

[patrickt]

One of the wonderful things about dealing with private companies is that they can't force you to do business with them.

Sure, you can whine all you want but you can also quit doing business with them.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've never considered not living in the US to be a problem that required a solution. Amazon UK's range of ebooks is at least as good as that of Amazon US.

In particular: it has Harry Potter in properly spelled English (and who knows what actual words or idioms are changed), and as I discovered when a book club I’m in chose it to read, Stephen Fry’s ‘Mythos’. For some reason they are not available in US in digital.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by patrickt

One of the wonderful things about dealing with private companies is that they can't force you to do business with them.

Sure, you can whine all you want but you can also quit doing business with them.

It's not whining.
There are restrictive practices and monopolies. Sometimes you have no choice at all when you want a particular printed book or ebook. Like a proper version of Harry Potter if you are in the USA.

Amazon certainly wants a monopoly of printed and ebooks. They are at 80% of online orders approx of printed books in USA and maybe over 90% of ebooks worldwide.

At least it's possible to change which marketplace your Kindle is one, or get a second older kindle to have two marketplaces at once.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

Amazon certainly wants a monopoly of printed and ebooks. They are at 80% of online orders approx of printed books in USA and maybe over 90% of ebooks worldwide.

Geographical restrictions have nothing whatsoever to do with Amazon. They are rights issues dictated by the publisher.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Geographical restrictions have nothing whatsoever to do with Amazon. They are rights issues dictated by the publisher.

And they don't only affect those outside of the U.S. I used to have several UK-only ebooks I wanted to buy, but couldn't in the US--even years after publication. They might be available now, but I wouldn't know: I gave up on checking for availability and moved on. Plenty of other non-US authors/imprints are willing to sell me their bits/bytes. And if I "absolutely, positively have to read it overnight" (which is extremely rare for me these days), then I'm not going to balk at importing a physical copy. I certainly prefer ebooks, but when it boils down to it, I prefer reading the books I want to read even more.

[issybird]

"Traveling," as frequently advocated to get a book more cheaply, is really just obfuscatory speak for doing an end run around an author's ability to maximize the profits from his labors as enabled by georestrictions. It is not accurate that the reader's right to get a book for as cheaply as possible trumps that, when it violates copyright law when the provider is not entitled to provide the content in the purchaser's location, or even when the publisher is the same in both locations. Price discrimination in this instance is neither illegal or immoral.

I'm not the internet police, but I think we should be honest about what's going on. No reader's rights are trampled by georestrictions and the ability to purchase a hard copy in the country in issue is irrelevant to digital content.

[patrickt]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

It's not whining.
There are restrictive practices and monopolies. Sometimes you have no choice at all when

you want a particular printed book or ebook. Like a proper version of Harry Potter if you are in the USA.

Amazon certainly wants a monopoly of printed and ebooks. They are at 80% of online orders approx of printed books in USA and maybe over 90% of ebooks worldwide.

At least it's possible to change which marketplace your Kindle is one, or get a second older kindle to have two marketplaces at once.

It is whining, your arguments don't hold water, the only monopolies are either government-approved or the government, and numbers need citations and not simply pulled out of the air.

"PublishDrive analyzed the sales numbers of publishers signed up and found that in case of English titles only 39% of the sales volume came from the Amazon ebook market (2017 first 3 quarters). It is unquestionably a huge share, but still, if you are exclusive with Amazon Kindle through KDP Select, you may lose 61% of your potential readers and sales. You may earn more money in stores and markets you have never thought to be more suitable for your target group."
https://publishdrive.com/amazon-ebook-market-share/

There. That's a citation. If I said, "97% of the people who use numbers without citations are simply making up numbers as they go along," I would be making up numbers as I go along.

Why do successful businesses support competitors? They're desperate to not be a monopoly.

Now, back to reading.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by issybird

"Traveling," as frequently advocated to get a book more cheaply, is really just obfuscatory speak for doing an end run around an author's ability to maximize the profits from his labors as enabled by georestrictions. It is not accurate that the reader's right to get a book for as cheaply as possible trumps that, when it violates copyright law when the provider is not entitled to provide the content in the purchaser's location, or even when the publisher is the same in both locations. Price discrimination in this instance is neither illegal or immoral.

I'm not the internet police, but I think we should be honest about what's going on. No reader's rights are trampled by georestrictions and the ability to purchase a hard copy in the country in issue is irrelevant to digital content.

I've also noticed that people telling others not to complain about georestrictions are almost always living in the US or the UK, i.e. the countries where one experiences the least amount of said restrictions. I apologize for sounding harsh, but that seems more than a little hypocritical to me.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by patrickt

"PublishDrive analyzed the sales numbers of publishers signed up and found that in case of English titles only 39% of the sales volume came from the Amazon ebook market (2017 first 3 quarters). It is unquestionably a huge share, but still, if you are exclusive with Amazon Kindle through KDP Select, you may lose 61% of your potential readers and sales. You may earn more money in stores and markets you have never thought to be more suitable for your target group."
https://publishdrive.com/amazon-ebook-market-share/

That is for books sold by publishers signed up with PublishDrive.
The overall numbers for the US were:

Based on data collected by the authorearnings.com, Amazon is the biggest player of the US field. Including indie books (published without ISBN), Amazon accounts for 83% of US ebook purchases – and the rest is almost entirely shared between the Apple iBookStore, Barnes & Noble, Kobo US and the GooglePlay Books.

Similar for the UK:

Being the second largest ebook market (accounting for 15% of all English language ebook sales worldwide in 2017), the situation in the UK is just as interesting as in the US. Ebooks account for 34% of all book sales, and the biggest player, unsurprisingly, is Amazon.co.uk: 87.9% of the sales goes through there..

[removed]

[GlennD]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've never considered not living in the US to be a problem that required a solution. Amazon UK's range of ebooks is at least as good as that of Amazon US.

*sigh*

David Eddings.

[darryl]

Originally Posted by issybird

"Traveling," as frequently advocated to get a book more cheaply, is really just obfuscatory speak for doing an end run around an author's ability to maximize the profits from his labors as enabled by georestrictions. It is not accurate that the reader's right to get a book for as cheaply as possible trumps that, when it violates copyright law when the provider is not entitled to provide the content in the purchaser's location, or even when the publisher is the same in both locations. Price discrimination in this instance is neither illegal or immoral.

I'm not the internet police, but I think we should be honest about what's going on. No reader's rights are trampled by georestrictions and the ability to purchase a hard copy in the country in issue is irrelevant to digital content.

You are of course entitled to express your opinion. I, on the other hand, object to the attempted price gouging that is going on simply because I choose to live in a particular country. I also object to arrangements which seek to prevent me purchasing content which is not available in my country. You may find this link instructive so far as price is concerned:

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/0...crosoft_adobe/

So far as copyright law is concerned, if I buy a book whilst "travelling", as you put it, I am purchasing a perfectly legal copy and am not myself in breach of copyright. There may be contractual arrangements between the distributor I buy from which seek to prevent that distributor from selling to me, but depending on the contract it is unlikely that even that distributor is in material breach of contract or copyright. Geo-restrictions are a relic of the time before digital goods and the internet. There is essentially a single world market for most digital goods, with technological measures attempting, often in vain, to divide it back into geographical sections. The sooner this archaic abomination dies a well deserved death the better.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by GlennD

*sigh*

David Eddings.

What about him? All his books are available in the UK, so it's certainly not necessary for me to pretend to be in the US to buy them.