From ePUBSecrets: The state of ePub standards support

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

So I could buy books from any store ... except Amazon, Apple and B&N (for those devices which still don't use the latest SDK). What percentage of the market does that leave me with? That doesn't seem like a great deal.
And in return I have to pay an Adobe tax, for a company that contribute nothing except DRM, which everybody hates?
(Besides, I read on a tablet, so I already can read books from any store I want)
You may hate Amazon with a white hot passion, but they provide the best user experience.

If you can strip the DRM, you can buy from B&N as the eBook under the DRM crud is ePub.

You aren't paying a DRM tax. Tor has gone DRM free and their prices did not go down at all. So there is no such thing as a DRM tax.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

The few books i bought without DRm, and thus ddd not need ade to download, it was really nice. I long for the day the publishers stop that drm nonsense.

The only DRM I advocate is time limited DRM used only for libraries. Otherwise, DRM can go away.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you can strip the DRM, you can buy from B&N as the eBook under the DRM crud is ePub.

a) If I have to strip the DRM, then I'm not "able to buy an eBook from any store selling eBooks and you can use it on your device without having to convert", am I?
b) If I'm stripping DRM, I might as well do a format conversion at the same time

The fact remains that I have an eInk reader that supports "standard Adobe ePub", and it can't read books from the three biggest stores.

[teh603]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

If you can strip the DRM, you can buy from B&N as the eBook under the DRM crud is ePub.

You aren't paying a DRM tax. Tor has gone DRM free and their prices did not go down at all. So there is no such thing as a DRM tax.

I think he's referring to licensing fees in the reader, and the fact that companies are wasting money researching DRM when they could be researching better products.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by teh603

I think he's referring to licensing fees in the reader, and the fact that companies are wasting money researching DRM when they could be researching better products.

Every Adobe DRMed book, even the freebies, costs the vendor $0.22. Several million books time $0.22 is a fair amount of money. If I were a retailer, I'd certainly want to avoid it.

Libraries must pay $10,000 to get set up on ACS(Adobe Content Server) and $1,500 per year plus $0.08 per book for loans. Nice racket, huh?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

a) If I have to strip the DRM, then I'm not "able to buy an eBook from any store selling eBooks and you can use it on your device without having to convert", am I?
b) If I'm stripping DRM, I might as well do a format conversion at the same time

The fact remains that I have an eInk reader that supports "standard Adobe ePub", and it can't read books from the three biggest stores.

Apple's iBookStore is not one of the three biggest. So just forget it even exists.

If you are setup correctly to remove the DRM, you can do it with Calibre and the plugins. So, once you add the eBook to Calibre, the DRM is removed. It's that easy once you are set.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Apple's iBookStore is not one of the three biggest. So just forget it even exists.

Another statement you aren't going to provide any evidence for?

If you are setup correctly to remove the DRM, you can do it with Calibre and the plugins. So, once you add the eBook to Calibre, the DRM is removed. It's that easy once you are set.

At which point it doesn't matter what reader you have, as you could just as easily convert to or from Kindle books.
Still don't see anything positive being added by Adobe.

[fjtorres]

Last I heard, iBooks outsold Kobo in the US, which puts them at number three. (And unlike B&N, Apple sells ebooks worldwide, like Amazon.)

With Amazon holding tight to their 60% (plus) market share and B&N holding on to their 25%, that only leaves a maximum of 15% to be divided between Apple, Kobo, and the Adobe generics (sony, Google, etc). Even if Apple only has 6-8% (I've heard 10%) that still leaves Kobo and the Adept axis with precious little revenue to deliver to Adobe. (Which might explain why they're Open Sourcing their epub3 plugin for Chrome.)

At this point, there is *effectively* no retailer-independent standard format for commercial DRM'ed ebooks. (Even Kobo is hedging their bets with Kepub.)

Pretty much all the money is in the walled gardens.
People simply aren't buying "standards"; they're buying ebooks.

[JSWolf]

Those numbers are supposedly US numbers. But given that Amazon does not release numbers, they could be total crap.

We know that (for example) Kobo outsells Amazon in Canada. We know in France and Russia, ePub readers outsell Amazon. UK, could be maybe 50/50.

So really, thinking Amazon is #1 world wide is just wishful thinking.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

UK, could be maybe 50/50.

UK is nowhere near 50/50, Amazon dominate more so than they do in the US.

So really, thinking Amazon is #1 world wide is just wishful thinking.

What does that make stating as a fact that ePub retailers outsell Amazon?
Really really wishful thinking?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

What does that make stating as a fact that ePub retailers outsell Amazon?
Really really wishful thinking?

Lotus eating?

The numbers I've seen (for device sales) have Amazon with a *larger* share of ebook readers worldwide than in the US. Which makes sense because in the US they have to deal with Nook and most of their worldwide competition is smaller, hardware-only players so their typical price advantage in most markets is bigger than in North America.

ebook share would be lower worldwide than in the US because of georestrictions but not lower enough to impact the format ratio much because *so far* the "Anglosphere" is the lion's share of the global ebook market; most other regions have yet to mainstream ebook adoption and it remains the domain of hobbyists. As of 2011, the US+UK added up to something like 80% of the world ebook market. Might be higher now as no other market as mainstreamed while the UK has exploded.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Lotus eating?

As of 2011, the US+UK added up to something like 80% of the world ebook market. Might be higher now as no other market as mainstreamed while the UK has exploded.

Here's a link to an article on the low rate of e-book adoption in Germany. (Interestingly, the article also points out that Germany was slow to adopt the paperback.)

http://www.businessweek.com/articles...nt-ebook-sales

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Andrew H.

Interestingly, the article also points out that Germany was slow to adopt the paperback.

And for that matter, they "introduced" them 20 years after abandoning their experiments with it. Those experiments led to first Penguin in the UK and later Pocketbooks in the US building big businesses by 1939.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paperback