Where to Buy Books for Kobo? - Page 4

enuddleyarbl · 06-07-2021, 10:40 AM

On a different front, one of the two remaining paperback books in my collection, Larry Niven's "Protector," is finally available on Amazon. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available (yet) anywhere else (I checked abebooks (physical books only?), baen, barnes and noble, booksamillion, ebooks.com, google, kobo and smashwords). I can't find who published this as an ebook, so I can't check the publisher. Is there normally a delay between various outlets getting ebooks available to sell? I'd assume that Amazon would be first just because of their size. What kind of delay between various outlets getting a book to sell is normal?

salamanderjuice · 06-07-2021, 11:07 AM

I think there's something fishy going on there. Why does the cover of the Kindle edition appear to be taken from an old copy that has a dent in the top left corner? Why does it have no copyright page in the book sample? I feel like it's an unauthorized edition maybe...

Sirtel · 06-07-2021, 11:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaveLessnau

On a different front, one of the two remaining paperback books in my collection, Larry Niven's "Protector," is finally available on Amazon. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available (yet) anywhere else (I checked abebooks (physical books only?), baen, barnes and noble, booksamillion, ebooks.com, google, kobo and smashwords). I can't find who published this as an ebook, so I can't check the publisher. Is there normally a delay between various outlets getting ebooks available to sell? I'd assume that Amazon would be first just because of their size. What kind of delay between various outlets getting a book to sell is normal?

While it's hard to say if the Kindle edition is legal or not (I agree it looks suspicious), some books are published on Amazon only and may never become available anywhere else. So if you see an ebook on Amazon and nowhere else, get it from Amazon. You can convert it to epub or kepub for your Kobo.

JSWolf · 06-07-2021, 02:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I've had several Overdrive books where I obtained the copy on my Kobo by syncing (so I assume it's a kepub) and the Kobo copy had the TOC, but the epub copies I downloaded directly from Overdrive onto my phone and Tolino ereader were missing the TOC.

That's unusual. My experience is that I get the latest version of the ePub from Overdrive.

JSWolf · 06-07-2021, 02:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

While it's hard to say if the Kindle edition is legal or not (I agree it looks suspicious), some books are published on Amazon only and may never become available anywhere else. So if you see an ebook on Amazon and nowhere else, get it from Amazon. You can convert it to epub or kepub for your Kobo.

Actually, it's extremely easy. Download a sample and look at the code. It looks like a text file with some minor HTML added. No stylesheet. No ToC. No way.

Code:

</head><body>
<img src="../images/00001.jpeg"/><h3><b id="2-4075afe7f55f4dc6b79995ce207a6658">Larry Niven</b></h3>
<font size="-2"><i><p>Phssthpok the Pak had been traveling for most of his thirty-two thousand years. His mission:
save, develop, and protect the group of Pak breeders sent out into space some two and a half million
years before…</p>
<p>Brennan was a Belter, the product of a fiercely independent, somewhat anarchic society living in,
on, and around an outer asteroid belt. The Belters were rebels, one and all, and Brennan was a
smuggler. The Belt worlds had been tracking the Pak ship for days — Brennan figured to meet that
ship first…</p>
He was never seen again — at least not by those alive at the time.
<p>The  work  fleshes  out  a  species  called  the  Pak,  originally  introduced  in  a  story  called  Pak
Protectors. The first half of the novel is titled Phssthpok and the second half is titled Vandervecken.
The first half was previously published as The Adults. The novel Destroyer of Worlds will serve as a
semi-sequel to Protector.</p>
Nominated for Hugo and Locus awards in 1974.</i></font>
<h1><b>by Larry Niven
PHSSTHPOK</b></h1>
<i><p>Genesis, Chapter 3, King James version:<br/>
22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to
know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the
tree of life, and eat, and live forever:<br/>
23 Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to
till the ground from whence he was taken.<br/>
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the Garden of
Eden Cher-u-bims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep
the way of the tree of life.</p>
<b>***</b></i>
<p>He sat before an eight-foot circle of clear twing, looking endlessly out
on a view that was less than exciting.<br/>
Even a decade ago those stars had been a sprinkling of dull red dots in
his wake. When he cleared the forward view, they would shine a hellish
blue, bright enough to read by. To the side, the biggest had been visibly
flattened.  But  now  there  were  only  stars,  white  points  sparsely  scattered
across a sky that was mostly black. This was a lonely sky. Dust clouds hid
the blazing glory of home.<br/>
The light in the center of the view was not a star. It was big as a sun,
dark  at  the  center,  and  bright  enough  to  have  burned  holes  in  a  man’s
retinae.  It  was  the  light  of  a  Bussard  ramjet,  burning  a  bare  eight  miles
away. Every few years Phssthpok spent some time watching the drive, just
to be sure it was burning evenly. A long time ago he had caught a slow,
periodic wavering in time to prevent his ship from becoming a tiny nova.
But  the  blue-white  light  had  not  changed  at  all  in  the  weeks  he’d  been
watching it.<br/>

Sirtel · 06-07-2021, 02:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Actually, it's extremely easy. Download a sample and look at the code. It looks like a text file with some minor HTML added. No stylesheet. No ToC. No way.

Well, the author might have self-published it and not had any professional help. Granted, it's unlikely in the case of Niven.

enuddleyarbl · 06-07-2021, 04:26 PM

According to Wikipedia, Niven's website is http://larryniven.net/ . There's nothing there indicating an electronic version of "Protector" having been released So, I, too, am wondering about the legitimacy of what's on Amazon's site. I reported it on Amazon's book page with one of their reporting links at the bottom of the page. We'll see what happens.

JSWolf · 06-07-2021, 05:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Well, the author might have self-published it and not had any professional help. Granted, it's unlikely in the case of Niven.

Given the code sample I posted, there's no way at all that it's real. It's as bogus as a $3 bill.

Sirtel · 06-07-2021, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Given the code sample I posted, there's no way at all that it's real. It's as bogus as a $3 bill.

I've seen similar coding (or rather lack of it) with some self-published books a few years ago. With <br> tags for paragraphs and all. But nowadays it's rare.

JSWolf · 06-07-2021, 07:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sirtel

I've seen similar coding (or rather lack of it) with some self-published books a few years ago. With <br> tags for paragraphs and all. But nowadays it's rare.

But this is not self-published. It's stolen and published on Amazon because the thieves can get away with it enough to make some money before it's taken down if it ever is.

enuddleyarbl · 06-19-2021, 10:57 AM

It took Amazon about two weeks and three reports by me (and however many other people reported it), but that Kindle version of "Protector" is finally gone.

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06-07-2021, 10:40 AM	#46
enuddleyarbl Guru Posts: 776 Karma: 1538394 Join Date: Sep 2013 Device: Kobo Forma	On a different front, one of the two remaining paperback books in my collection, Larry Niven's "Protector," is finally available on Amazon. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be available (yet) anywhere else (I checked abebooks (physical books only?), baen, barnes and noble, booksamillion, ebooks.com, google, kobo and smashwords). I can't find who published this as an ebook, so I can't check the publisher. Is there normally a delay between various outlets getting ebooks available to sell? I'd assume that Amazon would be first just because of their size. What kind of delay between various outlets getting a book to sell is normal?

06-07-2021, 11:07 AM	#47
salamanderjuice Guru Posts: 926 Karma: 12671918 Join Date: Jul 2017 Device: Boox Nova 2	I think there's something fishy going on there. Why does the cover of the Kindle edition appear to be taken from an old copy that has a dent in the top left corner? Why does it have no copyright page in the book sample? I feel like it's an unauthorized edition maybe...

06-07-2021, 04:26 PM	#52
enuddleyarbl Guru Posts: 776 Karma: 1538394 Join Date: Sep 2013 Device: Kobo Forma	According to Wikipedia, Niven's website is http://larryniven.net/ . There's nothing there indicating an electronic version of "Protector" having been released So, I, too, am wondering about the legitimacy of what's on Amazon's site. I reported it on Amazon's book page with one of their reporting links at the bottom of the page. We'll see what happens.

06-19-2021, 10:57 AM	#56
enuddleyarbl Guru Posts: 776 Karma: 1538394 Join Date: Sep 2013 Device: Kobo Forma	It took Amazon about two weeks and three reports by me (and however many other people reported it), but that Kindle version of "Protector" is finally gone.

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