The Book Depository launches an Ebookstore

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Thanks for the post, Am. I will look carefully to see if they have some of the many titles I'm looking for. At first glance, I see lots of......erm......"romance" books.

The same comment I've read at a Spanish forum

[AlexBell]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Anyone else notice bookdepository.co.uk stocking ereaders? The price comes up automatically for Australian dollars for us Aussies, and I tell you, the prices are very very nice. Just an example, a Sony PRS-300 comes in at $248AUS, to buy from an Australian seller (imported and resold) is $465AUS.

Yes, I noticed and was briefly tempted. I really like their automatic pricing in AUD - presumably from my email address - but I think perhaps they've put the site up too soon. It's looks beta at best.

Regards, Alex

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Anyone else notice bookdepository.co.uk stocking ereaders? The price comes up automatically for Australian dollars for us Aussies, and I tell you, the prices are very very nice. Just an example, a Sony PRS-300 comes in at $248AUS, to buy from an Australian seller (imported and resold) is $465AUS.

Yeah, dollar very strong at the moment vs the pommie certainly is nice for that sort of thing.

[FlorenceArt]

Definitely beta...

[neilmarr]

Just checked, Cuddly, and find the Book Depository (which carries all our paperbacks) is now offering all BeWrite Books titles in 'ebook', too. Only in PDF, though. Must see to them getting our ePub versions. As you say, ebook pricing there (as often elsewhere) seems haphazard and based on a percentage of the paperback cover price. Publishers have little control over that, even though our RRP for ebook in any format is set at $5.99. Page count for full novel ebooks, of course, should not be a consideration when a paperback cover price is calculated according to page-count PRINT costs. With ebooks, there simply ain't no print cost. Cheers. Neill

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

I looked up Alastair Reynolds - and they were listed as 'Out of Stock' - not sure if this is because I can't buy them here, or they just don't have them.

Anyone else?

Yes. This is the query I sent:

I've been searching through your ebook lists and so far all the ones that I've searched or have shown as being "Out of Stock". In fact I've come across sections where every ebook on the page was listed that way.

How can an ebook go out of stock? It seems counter-intuitive, given that it's just a copy of a computer file.

Do they take long to get back into stock, or is this really a reflection that you haven't yet got the rights to sell them in some areas, or perhaps that negotiations are ongoing to sell them at all?

Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide.

This is the reply I got. It's pretty much what I imagined, but it doesn't really enlighten me. I still can't tell if they simply can't sell the titles I searched in Australia, or whether they are still negotiating to sell them at all.


Dear Chris,

E-books are out of stock if the file is not being made available to us by the publisher - this may be for a number of reasons, the usual ones being that the publisher is not distributing through our suppliers, or because the title has been market restricted.

We are doing our best to widen the selection of e-books as best we can, but I am afraid that we cannot offer specific dates for titles, as this is dependent upon publishers making content available, which isn't something we can easily influence.

Kind Regards,

Tom

Thomas Randles
Customer Service Manager
The Book Depository Ltd

[HarryT]

It rather makes you wonder why they list books that they can't actually supply, doesn't it?

[ChrisC333]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It rather makes you wonder why they list books that they can't actually supply, doesn't it?

It does seem somewhat pointless. It makes it look like they've jumped the gun with launching the site. But I expect they'll improve the situation over the next few months. I'd certainly hope they'll be adding details about regional restrictions - other sites seem to manage it.

Currently, their claims of stocking "hundreds of thousands of amazing ebooks for you" looks more like wishful thinking rather than fact. I guess that it's yet another site to keep an eye on over the next few months and hope that they continue to improve....

[Blue Tyson]

Yeah.

Pretty sure any of us can put up a website not selling hundreds of thousands of books, too.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Blue Tyson

Yeah.

Pretty sure any of us can put up a website not selling hundreds of thousands of books, too.

I also noticed a seemingly large number of outrageously priced pdfs (over 100 or even 200 euros ).

Looks to me like they have no idea what they are doing. Of course, this is a good way to learn in a hurry. I'll try to remember to come back in a few months, I'm sure the site will be useable by then. Or gone...

[TGS]

The Book Depository does seem to have had a rather up and down history the last couple of years. When I first moved to Denmark two-and-a-half years ago I used to buy most of my books from them - they were often cheaper than elsewhere and would ship for free, (and they seemed to have a fairly simplistic understanding of VAT rules = they are in the UK therefore anything bought from them is subject to UK VAT. UK VAT on books is zero - as compared with Denmark where it's 25%!). Then a couple of friends had non-deliveries. Then they stopped delivering to Denmark with no explanation. Now they deliver here again as far as I can tell.

Despite - or maybe because of - their slightly shambolic approach I kind of have a soft spot for them. I hope they get their ebook operation sorted soon and maybe once they do we will find some good deals.

[Blue Tyson]

Well, they are extremely excellent for the dead tree variety, definitely.

[Jux]

But the selection of ebooks is quite impressive. They are all ebooks there, right?

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by Jux

But the selection of ebooks is quite impressive. They are all ebooks there, right?

Not necessarily. It's easy to get diverted to a p-book selection if you click on one of the categories on the left.