It is the Worst of Times for Reading EBooks

[leebase]

Those two sites, nice as they are, are more like affiliate pages for Amazon. They are not separate stores selling their own books with their own deals.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by leebase

Those two sites, nice as they are, are more like affiliate pages for Amazon. They are not separate stores selling their own books with their own deals.

Minor nit: BookBub does more than just Amazon though Amazon does seem to make up a good chunk of their recommendations. Last time I looked, they also support Kobo, Google and Apple along with B&N Nook for our American cousins.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by leebase

Those two sites, nice as they are, are more like affiliate pages for Amazon. They are not separate stores selling their own books with their own deals.

That feels like a distinction without a difference to me as an end user. Your comment that I replied to was:

Originally Posted by leebase

...What of the poor stated of "places to buy ebooks" and certainly "deals that can be found".

...There is no price competition among vendors selling the popular ebooks. No club deals (that I know of). No "frequent shopper rewards".

I am notified of books that are on sale. I buy books at a discounted price. The same marked down books at Amazon are almost always also marked down at the other sellers (if the threads in the Deals forum are any indication).

They seem (to me) to fulfill the spirit of your question if not the letter.

[Deskisamess]

Originally Posted by leebase

Those two sites, nice as they are, are more like affiliate pages for Amazon. They are not separate stores selling their own books with their own deals.

Sure, but how is that bad? Many users only buy from one source, and may not even be aware of other sources. I get 95% of my books from Amazon.

I get a BookBub email every day, and average 2 freebies a week from Amazon. Many are reduced prices, which I may not buy, but may look at my local library for. Either way, I'm getting an email loosely based on my preferences, telling me of sales.

[Pajamaman]

I'm disappointed in what I suspect is the deliberately poor navigation of the major ereader types (kobo and kindle). Compare the screen navigation of Android ereader apps and they are superior. To have a similar ability, one must buy an ereader with buttons, and kindle/kobo have decided buttons are a luxury options.How hard is it make page next all round the edge of the screen?

[Deskisamess]

"Next Page" area on Kindles is most of the screen. Page Back is about ½ inch of the left side of the screen.

I don't agree that Kindles and Kobo have poor navigation. Response times may seem sluggish when compared to a tablet or smart iPhone, but I have no problems navigating my Oasis, or my Kobo Glo when I used it.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Pajamaman

Compare the screen navigation of Android ereader apps and they are superior.

Just going to leave this hang right here.

[lumpynose]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Just going to leave this hang right here.

Well, at least he didn't say that the Kindle UI was better.

How many old timers remember "back in the good 'ol days" when the affordance was so much better; you could immediately tell what you could click on because it was a 3d object with rounded/beveled edges and maybe a drop shadow. And changing the settings was a wrench or gear icon; now we have 3 dots or 3 bars, and everything's flat and 2d and that's better?

[leebase]

A deal is a deal, no doubt. But a single seller of ebooks isn’t healthy. We should want those little boutique websites AND Amazon deal watching sites. I guess I’m trying to point out that Apple and the Big 5 lost....but WE didn’t win.

Amazon won. Amazon was already winning which is why the Big 5 teamed up with Apple in the first place. Collusion is bad...and I’m not in favor of price fixing, I’m just pointing out that things didn’t go back to the way they were before. Little guys were wiped out...Amazon no longer sells the NYT best sellers for $9.99

Apple never even mentions books anymore unless it’s for education.

Today's ebook buying landscape is worse than it was 10 years ago and there is zero movement that I can see to change this

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by leebase

A deal is a deal, no doubt. But a single seller of ebooks isn’t healthy. We should want those little boutique websites AND Amazon deal watching sites. I guess I’m trying to point out that Apple and the Big 5 lost....but WE didn’t win.

Of course, you can buy from Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Apple, Google Books and Smashwords (too bad MS dropped out before they really made a go of it).

Don't get me wrong. More sites would be better and if the books and readers were separate, that would be better as well.

But I do wonder if the way things are right now is partly what encourages such steep discounts in pricing? (An effort to increase the book's ranking on Amazon.)

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by leebase

A deal is a deal, no doubt. But a single seller of ebooks isn’t healthy. We should want those little boutique websites AND Amazon deal watching sites. I guess I’m trying to point out that Apple and the Big 5 lost....but WE didn’t win.

Amazon won. Amazon was already winning which is why the Big 5 teamed up with Apple in the first place. Collusion is bad...and I’m not in favor of price fixing, I’m just pointing out that things didn’t go back to the way they were before. Little guys were wiped out...Amazon no longer sells the NYT best sellers for $9.99

Apple never even mentions books anymore unless it’s for education.

Today's ebook buying landscape is worse than it was 10 years ago and there is zero movement that I can see to change this

Apple just did a major revision of their ebook reader and store less than a year ago. If you buy any ebooks from them, then you will start getting emails from Apple about books.

Certainly, it would be great if there were more ebook stores and more buying options. On the other hand, I don't really see any business rational for discount ebooks stores. It's not like publishers are trying to dump books to clean out their warehouses. There is no real cost to maintaining ebooks on one servers.

With that said, there are three major barriers to new bookstores.

The primary issue is that the majority of ebook customers just want the easiest method for buying books. If you have a kindle eReader, you will buy from the Kindle store, if you just have an iPad, you probably buy from the Apple store, if you have a Nook, the B&N store and if you have a Kobo, then the kobo store. Most buy only a handful of books a year and saving a couple of bucks isn't really a thing. Unless a book automatically shows up on your Kindle (or whatever), odds are most customers won't go to that store.
Let's be honest, the posters here are not average ebook customers and likely are not the primary customers for most ebook stores.

Second is selection. Kindle has by far the biggest selection. The publishers really need to make it easy for a new start up to have a full catalog rather than have to negotiate contracts with everyone and their brother. Of course, if they did that, they would be sued into oblivion by a legion of lawyers egged on by Amazon.

Last is publicity. If a company can get the first two fixed, then they have to get consumers to notice them. But that's standard marketing.

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by leebase

Apple lost, Apple had to pay a large fine. But Agency pricing didn't die. There is no price competition among vendors selling the popular ebooks. No club deals (that I know of). No "frequent shopper rewards".

Kobo has a rewards scheme, and a VIP (club) scheme.

Edit: Also, agency pricing doesn't necessarily apply outside US/Canada. In New Zealand for example Apple often has the most competitive price on Penguin/Random house ebooks, and Kobo has a price-match-plus-10% scheme that can be used to get the ebook 10% below the Apple price.

[Pajamaman]

Originally Posted by Deskisamess

"Next Page" area on Kindles is most of the screen. Page Back is about ½ inch of the left side of the screen.

I don't agree that Kindles and Kobo have poor navigation. Response times may seem sluggish when compared to a tablet or smart iPhone, but I have no problems navigating my Oasis, or my Kobo Glo when I used it.

Why would you dedicate the left edge of screen to a function you rarely use and which you can perform with a swipe. If you hold the device in your left hand, this arrangement makes it hard do a next page. Why not dedicate all edges to next page, thereby making the device truly ambidextrous, and leave page back to a back swipe? Its not rocket surgery. Many major Android ereader apps allow this. Indeed, why not allow the user to configure custom screen zones, again, just like many major ereader apps?

To achieve truly ambidextrous controls on a kindle or kobo, one must pay $300+. WTF For buttons. They used to be standard, now they're premium only. But the same effect can achieved easily on Alreader which was written by one man.

[binaryhermit]

I don't find it particularly hard to do a "next page" with the kindle in my left hand. But I'm willing to concede I'm weird, I think I have long fingers from my experience with disposable gloves.

EDIT: I mean, you can sort of reach out with your thumb and swipe toward your hand

[Deskisamess]

You don’t even need to swipe. I have very small hands and can easily reach ½” from the left edge with my thumb to tap to advance the page.

I go back a page two many times, but again, only ½” is dedicated to the touch area for page back.

I never swipe when reading, the only tine I use a swipe to page forward or back is when I’m on the Home Screen.