I've never owned a Kindle. What about you?

[harristoyles]

I bought my first e-reader about a week ago, the Kobo Aura. So I suppose I can join in and say I've never had a kindle as well. My main reasons for choosing Kobo over Amazon are the format, the expandability and design, all of which I loved on the Kobo. I was torn for a while on what to buy, with the new PW2 coming out and all and tonnes of QC issues from Kobo. But I waited it out and finally decided to take the leap away from the mainstream PW (They have great customer service but damn it I just hate monopolists) and got the Aura. I've had a couple issues with it so far but both were solved easily so I'm not stressed. Also, I like a techy challenge, so fixing problems with my devices is something I sometimes enjoy. Loove the Aura's design and flush bezel, I'm used to flat screens so this fits right in with all my other devices. I'm just hoping I don't have any serious problems with it as from what I've heard Kobo's customer service is absolute crap- the major downside to an otherwise great device. Fingers crossed!

[Quexos]

It may be nonsense to you but it does not mean it is for others. So please just say you disagree but don't belittle others' opinions like that.

It makes sense because, with an epub reader I just load epubs to my reader and that is all, I'm done.

With the PW I must start downloading Calibre, spending time finding out how Calibre works, convert EVERY epub I have, with the risk of changes in lay out or font or whatever (With electronics and software there are ALWAYS issues sooner or later).
And that is without mentioning the fact that if I want to mess with the css code in my epub, I know how to do it (more or less, I'm no expert either) But with my converted .mobi or .azw or whatever format Kindle uses, I have no idea how to change stuff should I have issues with the book and I'm not comfortable enough with Calibre to mess with the insides of my ebooks with it.

You want to know what actual nonsense is ?
Kindle NOT having support for epub ...

Originally Posted by Katsunami

That's nonsense.

As long as you either use DRM-free books or remove DRM (which is trivial to do, as long as the Unnamed Tools are supported by their makers), Calibre can convert from one format to the other.

My entire e-book library is EPUB only, apart from some very few exceptions that were only obtainable through Amazon. Calibre converts these to AZW3 just fine (and you can actually configure it to do it on uploading the books to the Kindle: you won't even notice that it's converting, apart from the fact that the upload takes a bit longer).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Quexos

It makes sense because, with an epub reader I just load epubs to my reader and that is all, I'm done.

The "elephant in the room" with ePub is DRM. The ePub specifications allows someone to bolt on any DRM mechanism they want to an ePub file, and still claim that it's ePub, which has resulted in at least three different, mutually incompatible, DRM mechanisms being used for ePub books. You can't, for example, buy an ePub book from Apple's bookstore and load it onto your Kobo.

You want to know what actual nonsense is ?
Kindle NOT adding support for epub ...

No, it's sound business sense. Say what you want about Amazon, but they don't generally do things that aren't good business. They sell the Kindle essentially at cost price because they rely on making money from content. Kindle owners generally buy books from Amazon, and owning their own DRM system rather than having to pay licence fees to Adobe allows them to generally undercut the prices of bookstores which use Adobe Content Server, for which there are not only extremely high licence fees for the store, but a fixed cost of 22c per sale. Amazon have none of these costs, and hence can sell books more cheaply.

[Quexos]

Forgive me but as a customer my interest is not in what is good for the corporation to which I may end up paying good money for my entertainment.
If what is good for them is inconvenient for me then it's not good for me.
As a customer I want to have ease of access and a reader that reads .mobi, .azw AND .epub would be more interesting to me (Incidentally to Amazon too because on top of buying epubs I would end up buying Amazon's ebooks too with such a reader) and I don't plan to pay AND keep the corporation's interest at heart.


It reminds me of the issue of geographical restrictions on so many ebooks out there. I can't buy book X because it's only sold in region Y when I happen to live in region Z as if those companies agreeing to sell here but not there WERE ANY of my business or concerns. I would be, in such case, stupid to just nod and say to myself, ok I won't read this ebook because it is NOT in the company's interest to do so just because I live in the "wrong" region.
If they exclude me from A: a good price and B: access to a product that is available elsewhere but not to me, then it's my right to find "alternative ways" to get the product in question and too bad for the company, they were not smart enough to respect the customer and give worldwide access to a product which comes natural with the worldwide availability of the internet.

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, it's sound business sense. Say what you want about Amazon, but they don't generally do things that aren't good business. They sell the Kindle essentially at cost price because they rely on making money from content. Kindle owners generally buy books from Amazon, and owning their own DRM system rather than having to pay licence fees to Adobe allows them to generally undercut the prices of bookstores which use Adobe Content Server, for which there are not only extremely high licence fees for the store, but a fixed cost of 22c per sale. Amazon have none of these costs, and hence can sell books more cheaply.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Forgive me but as a customer my interest is not in what is good for the corporation to which I may end up paying good money for my entertainment.

It IS in your interests to buy from Amazon if their books are cheaper, surely? When you buy an ePub book from Kobo, or whatever other ADE bookstore you may shop at, a significant portion of your money is going into Adobe's bank account.

If you look at the "Deals and Freebies" forum here at MR you'll have noticed that many of the books which are available free from Amazon aren't free from other bookstores. That's because those other stores have to pay their 22c fee to Adobe regardless of what the book costs.

[Quexos]

Well yes, cheap books is a good point for Amazon.
But that does not fix the issue to begin with. What do I do with my collection of epubs should I ditch my epub readers and take a PW ?
I am not comfortable with Caliber and should I have format issues with .mobi or .azw, I have no idea how to mess with the css myself as I'm used to on my epubs.

This issue would be fixed if the PW had epub support. If amazon's environment and prices are so great, they should not fear customers leaving and if customers keep buying amazon books as they do now, there is no reason for prices to change. What's more is customers of other epub selling companies would flock to amazon and their epub supporting reader and end up buying amazon books which are as you say, cheaper.
Which in turn would force those other epub selling companies to lower prices (and maybe ditch DRM's wich are a lose/lose for everyone) which in turn would be better for EVERY ebook customer out there no matter where they get their books.
Even piracy would probably decrease as quality retail ebooks would be available easily and at a fair price in an OPEN environment.

Originally Posted by HarryT

It IS in your interests to buy from Amazon if their books are cheaper, surely? When you buy an ePub book from Kobo, or whatever other ADE bookstore you may shop at, a significant portion of your money is going into Adobe's bank account.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Quexos

Well yes, cheap books is a good point for Amazon.
But that does not fix the issue to begin with. What do I do with my collection of epubs should I ditch my epub readers and take a PW ?
I am not comfortable with Caliber and should I have format issues with .mobi or .azw, I have no idea how to mess with the css myself as I'm used to on my epubs.

Amazon's "modern" format, KF8, is exactly like ePub in terms of CSS - it's essentially ePub in a Mobi wrapper. To adjust it in Calibre, just select the "Tweak Book" menu item which expands the book into its HTML and CSS source, and then edit the CSS exactly as you would do with an ePub book.

This issue would be fixed if the PW had epub support. If amazon's environment and prices are so great, they should not fear customers leaving and if customers keep buying amazon books as they do now, there is no reason for prices to change. What's more is customers of other epub selling companies would flock to amazon and their epub supporting reader and end up buying amazon books which are as you say, cheaper.

But in order to be compatible with ADE devices, Amazon would then need to use Adobe's DRM system, because you know as well as I do that most publishers won't sell books without DRM. That would then mean that Amazon would have to use Adobe Content Server and pay Adobe their 22c per transaction. The result would be that Amazon would: (a) be paying huge sums of money to Adobe (which would be very poor for them in business terms), and (b) have to raise prices to cover those costs. Where's the incentive for Amazon to do that?

Even piracy would probably decrease as quality retail ebooks would be available easily and at a fair price in an OPEN environment.

The ePub market is not "open" - you're playing in Adobe's "walled garden" just as I'm playing in Amazon's. The different between us is that I'm happy opening the gate and going elsewhere, and you're not.

[Quexos]

No they wouldn't and that's my point !

They would have NON DRM epub support (In other words you could only read open NON DRM or DRM Stripped epubs in this hypothetical Kindle reader) so guys like me just take my NON DRM'd collection to my new epub compatible PW, thus entering inside Amazon's environment. From there, my next purchase would logically be at Amazon's since they are cheaper. What's more, if I were still tempted to buy an epub elsewhere I would not, because my new PW would not read DRM epubs. From there, why bother buying more expensive epubs elsewhere and then have to bother stripping the DRM when I can with my new PW buy Amazon's cheaper books without DRM issues ? (It would be a win/win for Amazon as well as me the customer)

From there the pressure would be on the other companies to dump Adobe's evil DRM system or sell books at a higher price and with annoying DRM's (Which do you think the customers will choose ?)

Originally Posted by HarryT

But in order to be compatible with ADE devices, Amazon would then need to use Adobe's DRM system, because you know as well as I do that most publishers won't sell books without DRM. That would then mean that Amazon would have to use Adobe Content Server and pay Adobe their 22c per transaction. The result would be that Amazon would: (a) be paying huge sums of money to Adobe (which would be very poor for them in business terms), and (b) have to raise prices to cover those costs. Where's the incentive for Amazon to do that?

Are you so sure I'm Adobe's bit** ?
Why do you think my Epubs are not DRM'd ...

Originally Posted by HarryT

The ePub market is not "open" - you're playing in Adobe's "walled garden" just as I'm playing in Amazon's. The different between us is that I'm happy opening the gate and going elsewhere, and you're not.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Quexos

They would have NON DRM epub support (In other words you could only read open NON DRM or DRM Stripped epubs in this hypothetical Kindle reader) so guys like me just take my NON DRM'd collection to my new epub compatible PW, thus entering inside Amazon's environment. From there, my next purchase would logically be at Amazon's since they are cheaper. What's more, if I were still tempted to buy an epub elsewhere I would not, because my new PW would not read DRM epubs. From there, why bother buying more expensive epubs elsewhere and then have to bother stripping the DRM when I can with my new PW buy Amazon's cheaper books without DRM issues ? (It would be a win/win for Amazon as well as me the customer)

Nice idea, but I don't think it'll ever happen. The overwhelming majority of commercially-sold ePub books have Adobe DRM, and the typical punter doesn't know how to - or want to know how to - strip DRM (you say yourself that you're not comfortable with Calibre, and you're way more experienced with ebooks than the typical user is). If Amazon were to advertise the Kindle as working with "DRM-free ePub", the average book buyer would expect to be able to use a book they've bought from Kobo on an Kindle, and would be annoyed when they found that they couldn't. Amazon don't want to get into the dubious area of telling people how to remove DRM - it would be a public relations nightmare.

[Quexos]

So you're saying the average Joe would rather continue paying MORE for restrictive DRM'd ebooks than move on to Amazon's cheaper books and superior environment even to the cost of finishing reading the last DRM books they still got on their Kobo or Sony or whatever reader they have then move to Amazon for their future purchases ?

Oh my, people are stupider on average than I assumed and I guess Adobe is right to screw them over. They sort of deserve it if they don't know (or want) any better. As for guys like me who would have happily moved to Amazon with my current collection and from there ACTUALLY start purchasing ebooks there, I guess I'll just stay where I am.

What a world

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nice idea, but I don't think it'll ever happen. The overwhelming majority of commercially-sold ePub books have Adobe DRM, and the typical punter doesn't know how to - or want to know how to - strip DRM (you say yourself that you're not comfortable with Calibre, and you're way more experienced with ebooks than the typical user is). If Amazon were to advertise the Kindle as working with "DRM-free ePub", the average book buyer would expect to be able to use a book they've bought from Kobo on an Kindle, and would be annoyed when they found that they couldn't. Amazon don't want to get into the dubious area of telling people how to remove DRM - it would be a public relations nightmare.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Quexos

It may be nonsense to you but it does not mean it is for others. So please just say you disagree but don't belittle others' opinions like that.

It makes sense because, with an epub reader I just load epubs to my reader and that is all, I'm done.

Not every EPUB works on every reader, as HarryT pointed out. You claim to want ease of access, but that's not easy in my view. Also, you're stuck using ADE or whatever software the reader's manufacturer gives you, to get the books onto the reader, and you are dependent on Adobe's or the seller's whims with regard to device and computer activations.

With the PW I must start downloading Calibre, spending time finding out how Calibre works, convert EVERY epub I have, with the risk of changes in lay out or font or whatever (With electronics and software there are ALWAYS issues sooner or later).

Finding out how Calibre's basics work will cost you like... 15 minutes. Another 5 minutes to install the De-DRM plugin and set Calibre to convert to AZW3 on upload. That's about 20 minutes of work.

From that point onward, your books are automatically stripped of DRM, and automatically converted, and you get to keep your EPUBs untouched for whenever you may need them.

As of yet, there has never been an issue for me with converting books to AZW3, apart from one: Calibre can not yet convert ridiculously large books like the Delphi Classic ones. Some of them would number 20.000+ pages if printed as a paperback. I have been able to convert books up to 7.000 pages, and had to do the larger ones using Kindlegen.

However, when using normal books, you won't ever run into this problem. One would need to create some HUGE omnibusses to run into this limitation. (Even the George R.R. Martin omnibus of his first 5 Song of Ice and Fire books is not yet large enough.)

You want to know what actual nonsense is ?
Kindle NOT having support for epub ...

To be honest, I don't care (anymore). As long as Calibre can convert to the reader's format, I don't really care what format the reader uses. My base is EPUB2, because it's open, understood very well (as it's based on XML/XHTML), and it's nothing more than some zipped up text files. It's one of the best formats as a source to convert to other formats.

Originally Posted by Quexos

As a customer I want to have ease of access...

By spending 20 minutes to setup and learn Calibre's basics, one would open the avenue toward every reader, including the Kindle, without having to bother about DRM any longer.

That's what I call ease of access...

20 minutes for a "Do what you wish"-situation: seems a fair trade to me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Quexos

So you're saying the average Joe would rather continue paying MORE for restrictive DRM'd ebooks than move on to Amazon's cheaper books and superior environment even to the cost of finishing reading the last DRM books they still got on their Kobo or Sony or whatever reader they have then move to Amazon for their future purchases ?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all - please don't put words into my mouth. What I said was that the problem is that the average user has never heard of DRM, and neither knows nor cares whether or not their books have it, and that they'd get annoyed if a reading device claimed to support ePub, but then discovered that it wouldn't read the books that they'd bought at Kobo (or wherever). Amazon are never going to go down that road. If you think they should, you need to be talking to Amazon, not me.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Quexos

So you're saying the average Joe would rather continue paying MORE for restrictive DRM'd ebooks than move on to Amazon's cheaper books and superior environment even to the cost of finishing reading the last DRM books they still got on their Kobo or Sony or whatever reader they have then move to Amazon for their future purchases ?

No; what HarryT is saying is that many people are

too stupid / not experienced / not interested (circle applicable option)

enough to do anything else but buy a book and put it onto their reader using the manufacturer's instructions.

People just don't UNDERSTAND.

Most "normal" people buy an e-reader, and only THEN they'll find out what books will work and won't work, and they will do anything the manufacturer of the reader tells them to do, to get the books onto the reader.

If this does not work for any reason (ADE activation error, hit the limit of activated devices, whatever), these people are stuck most of the time, and will be sent from the store/reader manufacturer to Adobe, and back again, causing great frustration, and possibly never even resolving the problem.

People here, on MobileRead, they disregard all of that. They just install Calibre, and the Unnamed Tools. Then they buy whatever book they want, in whatever format, be it MOBI, AZW3 or EPUB. After downloading the book using ADE or the Kindle for PC app, they import the book into Calibre as one (1) extra step in the process and be done with DRM or format restrictions instantly.

These people NEVER have any problems. They never activate any device using ADE (apart from the computer it runs on), and because Calibre in combination with Alf's Unnamed Tools makes them completely independent from any store, any manufacturer, and any DRM-scheme, they can do whatever they want after the book arrives in Calibre.

Therefore, they can buy everything they want in EPUB (as I do, as many EPUB-sellers are actually cheaper for me than Amazon.com), in any store they want, and still use a Kindle without giving it a second thought, if they deem that to be the best reader at the moment.

At least, it works like that at this point in time, and in the foreseeable future.

[speakingtohe]

Originally Posted by Quexos

No they wouldn't and that's my point !

They would have NON DRM epub support (In other words you could only read open NON DRM or DRM Stripped epubs in this hypothetical Kindle reader) so guys like me just take my NON DRM'd collection to my new epub compatible PW, thus entering inside Amazon's environment. From there, my next purchase would logically be at Amazon's since they are cheaper. What's more, if I were still tempted to buy an epub elsewhere I would not, because my new PW would not read DRM epubs. From there, why bother buying more expensive epubs elsewhere and then have to bother stripping the DRM when I can with my new PW buy Amazon's cheaper books without DRM issues ? (It would be a win/win for Amazon as well as me the customer)

From there the pressure would be on the other companies to dump Adobe's evil DRM system or sell books at a higher price and with annoying DRM's (Which do you think the customers will choose ?)




Are you so sure I'm Adobe's bit** ?
Why do you think my Epubs are not DRM'd ...

But if your epubs are not DRMed then it is fairly simple to convert them and put them on a kindle is it not?

I know it would take 10 or 20 seconds of valuable time, but basically what you describe is pretty doable already for those that are even aware of DRM, and for those that aren't, well it would probably not be in Amazon's interest to draw attention to this type of procedure.

Helen

[Quexos]

Believe it or not, I don't even know how to load a book on a reader with Adobe DRM stuff. All my books are DRM Free so I just sideload and voilà ...
And I've never met an epub that did not work on my readers.
So I'm not stuck with all that DRM nonsense.

As for Caliber, it may take you 20 minutes to understand it but I think it would be a little more for me and compared to 0 minutes required if the Kindle had DRM Free Epub support. (Also as I mentioned before I am NOT comfortable using Calibre).

Anyways, should there one day be an Epub supporting Kindle, let me know as I might be interested ...

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Not every EPUB works on every reader, as HarryT pointed out. You claim to want ease of access, but that's not easy in my view. Also, you're stuck using ADE or whatever software the reader's manufacturer gives you, to get the books onto the reader, and you are dependent on Adobe's or the seller's whims with regard to device and computer activations.

Yes but you know what would be even more simple considering I'm not comfortable with Calibre ?
Epub support on the Kindle ... But we already discussed all this in previous posts.

Originally Posted by speakingtohe

But if your epubs are not DRMed then it is fairly simple to convert them and put them on a kindle is it not?