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Old 05-23-2013, 01:27 PM   #31
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Originally Posted by patrickt View Post
I just looked and the books are $11.99 from Amazon in the U.S. You haven't told us where you are but I'm guessing, and it's just a guess, Canada.

Why in the world would you challenge him to convince you of anything? Do what you want? Buy a Kobo and forget about it.
Hi patickt. Well, because I actually like the Kindle and the Amazon services. I'm just looking for an excuse or an extra push to use Amazon exclusively. But from where I live (the Philippines), Kobo books are almost always cheaper. And from this thread, it seems I'm crazy for thinking that and not buy from Kobo and just convert. Thanks!
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Old 05-23-2013, 02:52 PM   #32
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Originally Posted by pdurrant View Post
It lists nine instances in the past seven years where people have lost access to DRMed ebooks because providers either went out of business or decided to stop supporting a particular DRM system.
...and that's not all of the times it's happened either.
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Old 05-23-2013, 04:41 PM   #33
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Originally Posted by AnemicOak View Post
...and that's not all of the times it's happened either.
If you can think of others, do add them in to the list!
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Old 05-23-2013, 11:37 PM   #34
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Originally Posted by Katsunami View Post
Kobo and other EPUB-sellers are not always cheaper.

However, I greatly prefer EPUB over AZW(3) or MOBI. Even if the EPUB-sellers are more expensive, they stand a chance to sell a book to me, if the price difference is not too great.

For example, let's say I want to buy a series that consists of 5 books. Kobo, or another EPUB retailer sells them for €4.99 a piece, for a total of €24.95. Amazon has a bundle, for a price of €23.15 (after converting from $ to €). Then I would still go for the EPUBs.

If Amazon would sell the bundle for €19.95 or even less, then I'd start thinking aboutu buying there, and then just convert the AZW into EPUB, and use the converted file as my base format.

Yeah, you've seen that right; having a book as an original EPUB is worth about a €1 price premium per book, for me. If it's more than that, then I start looking at the Amazon offerings. It doesn't matter too much for me, as I don't buy hundreds and hundreds of books a year. Because I also read free classics, I buy around 30-40 books a year; at most.
May I ask why you give EPUB such premium? Thanks.
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Old 05-24-2013, 08:52 AM   #35
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Originally Posted by bokolobs View Post
May I ask why you give EPUB such premium? Thanks.
Very often, a book is not formatted as I want it to be. For example, there is white-space between the paragraphs, the indentation of the paragraphs is not to my liking, or there is a font embedded that I don't like. Sometimes, depending on the coding of the book, this causes the reader not to display the font and size I've chosen, but the font and size as coded in the book. Sometimes, the cover is missing. Most of the times I wish to embed the tags directly into the book.

The EPUB format has the best editing tools available, especially the later versions of Sigil. Also, EPUB is an open format, which means everybody who wants to (and has the programming skills) can write a viewer for it; this means that, if a new format comes along, the chance is quite big that EPUB can be onverted into it, especially if the new format is also open.

Buying a book as an EPUB makes sure that I do not need an extra conversion step. If I'd buy from Amazon, I would need to convert the book to EPUB first, which would replace all of the coding with generic Calibre code such as ".calibre8" for a class, instead of ".chapter". It works fine, but it's harder to understand if I ever need to edit something. And of course, if you need to convert a book to a new format in the future, it's always best to start with the pristine original book, instead of starting with a book that has had one or more conversions already.

To summarize, I am of the opinion that:
1. EPUB has the best editing tools available.
2. After de-DRM-ing, it can be read on all readers, (except Kindle).
3. It can relatively easily be converted into other formats (including Kindle).
4. Because it's open, I think it's the most future-proof format.
5. If a new format comes along, 3 and 4 make (almost) sure that an EPUB book can be converted into it.

Most other formats can be converted to other formats, but you must keep in mind many of these formats are mostly closed; therefore, all conversions are based on reverse-engineerd information insstead of actual information. I don't care if I convert EPUB into a vendor-specific, closed and reverse-engineerd format, but I want my base format to be open, with an officialy available specification.

By the way: before editing a book, I always keep an unedited, original copy that was not modified, except with regard to removing DRM.
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Old 05-24-2013, 01:14 PM   #36
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Originally Posted by Katsunami View Post
To summarize, I am of the opinion that:
1. EPUB has the best editing tools available.
2. After de-DRM-ing, it can be read on all readers, (except Kindle).
3. It can relatively easily be converted into other formats (including Kindle).
4. Because it's open, I think it's the most future-proof format.
5. If a new format comes along, 3 and 4 make (almost) sure that an EPUB book can be converted into it.
Wow! This is very enlightening! Thank you very much. I have always thought that Kindle formats are superior to EPUB. I think I will do the same from now on and buy EPUB books.

I now only have two other concerns:

a) updated versions of ebooks - I think Amazon gets them, updates their database, and rolls them out to customers automatically. I have had some ebooks updated by Amazon which I downloaded or automatically sent to my Kindle. Kobo however hasn't notified me about any updated version of the ones I bought from them. And I know there are updates because I checked the same books with my friend who bought them from Amazon. Should I email Kobo? Is having an updated version even a right I should have as a customer? Or is this another one of the special services you get from Amazon?

b) the perfect format for Kindle Paperwhite/DXG when converting from EPUB - are the default AZW3 and MOBI formats in Calibre the best? Or do any of you guys use a special script or recipe or profile when converting?

Again, thank you very much!
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Old 05-24-2013, 02:18 PM   #37
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The Kindle formats are not superior. Mobi is a very old format, and AZW3 (also called KF8, if I'm not mistaken) is basically a somewhat adjusted version of EPUB, wrapped in a proprietary container.

A) I don't know. I've never updated a book. If there are no obvious mistakes like missing pages and such, then I just read the book and file a backup. Small mistakes in layout and spelling I often fix myself.

B) Mobi and AZW3 as conversion target work fine for reading on the KPW. I don't know if the DX reads AZW3. If it doesn't, and you don't want a different target for each device, then use Mobi.

Last edited by Katsunami; 05-24-2013 at 02:23 PM.
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