Sony closes USA and Canada ebook store

[speakingtohe]

I'm wondering what will happen with the Sony ability to download directly to from the library via Wi-Fi. I always sideload but many people depend on this function. Can't see kobo taking it up as it is an Adobe thing. but one never knows.

I much prefer Sony readers, and if they stop making them I will buy another T3. Maybe even a second hand X50 as well. You gotta love the consistency and reliability on these devices.

Still I'd rather read on a kindle or Kobo than paper, even if I don't like them as well.

Helen

[robko]

Originally Posted by benham

It also said some books might not transfer, which makes absolutely no sense, whether Kobo carried the book or not.

Likely a case of Kobo not have the rights to the book (which would come from the publishers and Sony likely can't legally transfer the rights). I don't know whether it would be a case of Kobo not seeing enough market to have bought rights to these books before, or whether the publishers were unwilling to sell them licensing rights (in which case there would be nothing Kobo could do about it).

[sharphamster]

Thanks to the availability of Sony gift cards here, I have almost 50 books in my Sony store account. Back when, I bought most of my epubs from BoB, and my OCD has never accepted that those are lost to the aether. So If the Kobo store transfer goes fairly smoothly I think I'll appreciate the consolidation to one site, and the kepub versions for my HD.

I still have the random Diesel and eBooks.com, but my need to redundantly have back-ups 'just in case' should be a bit more satisfied. Maybe.

[cfrizz]

I really don't get the reluctance of people not wanting to download their books to their pcs/laptops or whatever. Once it is there, you don't have to worry about a store closing, or whether or not there will be a smooth transition to another store because you have the books you paid for in your pocession.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by 6charlong

I've wondered who developed and manufactured the Kobo ereaders: did Sony have a hand in it or is Kobo just the only logical place to send ePub customers.

The only commonality on the hardware side is that both are Adobe satellites, though Kobo hedges their bets with their proprietary Kepubs and Sony is 100% generic on the content side.
As of now Kobo is the only large store in NorthAm supporting Adept DRM.
So it was either send them to Kobo or leave them hanging.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by FacebookVirus

When I bought my 505 in 2007 I read that here and took it at face value. Bought my books elsewhere, mainly Fictionwise.

Later, with the T-1, I decided to give the Sony store a chance. I was surprised at how often they had what I was looking for, and I almost never read bestsellers.

I think their store is better than it's often said to be.

Whether or not you think their bookstore was good depends on how you used it. Even on wifi the store on my 950 was painfully slow. They didn't even have an online store so I didn't use them. I tried their pc app, but there are no accessibility settings so I couldn't use that either.

[goldilocks]

I am sad the Reader Store is closing. It had the cleanest webpages, you could change how many books you could view on a page, a cart to fill up, checkout and download all at once (through the older reader software). No messing with acsm files.

I got lots of good deals through the Reader Store. The only problems I had were some books are much higher priced then other stores and no real search options.

I already purchased a few spare 505's and I am sticking to them until they no longer function. My plan is to relocate the current eBooks in My Reader Library on my computer then redownload a fresh copy from the Reader Store (just to make sure I have them all). Then I will opt-in to have them transferred to Kobo (just hope it is not as bad as the Fictionwise transfer!). Hopefully the one I don't want will not transfer!

I already "I Cabbages" or "Alfed" my eBooks anyway.

[BearMountainBooks]

I have a question for those who have had trouble downloading kobobooks--is there a thread on that topic? I have a friend who has a kobo reader and bought 4 books but two wouldn't download. Despite multiple calls to cs, she still can't access the books. Wondering if there is something she can try or if there is any other info about it? I've not had the problem so I don't know more details, but would like more info.

[Bookworm_Girl]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

Whether or not you think their bookstore was good depends on how you used it. Even on wifi the store on my 950 was painfully slow. They didn't even have an online store so I didn't use them. I tried their pc app, but there are no accessibility settings so I couldn't use that either.

Sony did have an online store which was introduced in June 2012. It had the capability to download books directly without needing to use the Sony software.

Too little too late was always the problem. The same applies to their tablet apps which were missing in features and smooth syncing capabilities.

The Sony bookstore was good in recent years especially for mainstream works. With agency pricing there wasn't much reason to look elsewhere if you had a Sony reader. For the last year Sony has often been cheaper than Kobo for books that I read, and they were offering more coupons & sales. I recently had to buy a book from Sony because Amazon doesn't offer it but Sony & Kobo do. It was an older book but by a famous author.

[SoCalReader]

Sony gone... what to do?

In this person's opinion, even with the death of the 3G signal, the Sony PRS-950 is still a better e-reader than any of the new e-readers with their postage stamp screens, their limited ability to perform single hand reading and any eye-straining light that one can never turn off. So until my 950s die, the loss of the Sony Bookstore is irrelevant.

As noted many times, the advantage of epub is that one can legally purchase from multiple sources. (Google's book store may be the worst book browsing website out there, but the prices are excellent.) However, possible problems with the transfer of licences from Sony to Kobo combined with Amazon's willingness to terminate people's Kindle library increases the view that to protect one's investments, stripping out the DRM code is now a necessity.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by SoCalReader

In this person's opinion, even with the death of the 3G signal, the Sony PRS-950 is still a better e-reader than any of the new e-readers with their postage stamp screens, their limited ability to perform single hand reading and any eye-straining light that one can never turn off. So until my 950s die, the loss of the Sony Bookstore is irrelevant.

The Kobo Aura HD is a bigger screen size.

I've never used it though.

[Onemack]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I really don't get the reluctance of people not wanting to download their books to their pcs/laptops or whatever.

It was not reluctance initially, when this whole ebook thing started to grow some seven odd years ago, there were a lot of ebook suppliers who promised that the ebooks were available for life at their website, and those of us with limited storage space and older computers believed them. Unfortunately we did not have the benefit of hindsight.

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

I really don't get the reluctance of people not wanting to download their books to their pcs/laptops or whatever. Once it is there, you don't have to worry about a store closing, or whether or not there will be a smooth transition to another store because you have the books you paid for in your pocession.

Who's reluctant? But it's like anything else, there's two kinds of people in the world... those that backup their data, and those who have never had a harddrive fail (data loss event).

That said, I don't have my ebooks backed up. Amazon has em all. But, I also don't buy books prior to reading them, I wishlist em. I also seldom re-read books. So, the loss of my library would suck, but not be devastating. I threw away (well gave to the library) pretty much all of my paperbacks, I saw no reason to keep em any more.

Also, no one is losing anything there. The book store is still there and you can go an d/l stuff now that you know the store is going away.

[Kaitou Ace]

Ah well. I started out with Sony back in the PRS-500 days, and stayed with them through the T1. Jumped to the kobo Glo in 2012, and once I saw that the T3 had no backlight (and wasn't available in the US), grabbed the kobo Aura. Great device, and I've been quite happy with it.

Very sad to see Sony go, but they kinda did this to themselves. They may not be closing their book store down in other countries yet, but it won't take long for that to happen.

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Bookworm_Girl

Sony did have an online store which was introduced in June 2012. It had the capability to download books directly without needing to use the Sony software.

Too little too late was always the problem. The same applies to their tablet apps which were missing in features and smooth syncing capabilities.

The Sony bookstore was good in recent years especially for mainstream works. With agency pricing there wasn't much reason to look elsewhere if you had a Sony reader. For the last year Sony has often been cheaper than Kobo for books that I read, and they were offering more coupons & sales. I recently had to buy a book from Sony because Amazon doesn't offer it but Sony & Kobo do. It was an older book but by a famous author.

Too little too late is exactly what it was for me. I bought only maybe three books during the price fixing so that hurt Sony because I might have bought from them then. But I was so used to buying elsewhere that it probably didn't occur to me to check Sony.