AMAZON KINDLE BOOKS ON NOOK?

[spec]

Originally Posted by MikeFromMesa

People should remember that the Kindle and the Nooks are basically designed to generate profit for Amazon and B&N through book sales. They are not public services and so both companies try to tie the devices pretty closely to their book marketing. That is where their profit is, not in the devices.

Do you know the cost of manufacturing $140 new nook? Or do you just assume it's more than $140?

[MikeFromMesa]

Originally Posted by spec

Do you know the cost of manufacturing $140 new nook? Or do you just assume it's more than $140?

I have no particular knowledge of the manufacturing costs of any of the eReaders, but some of the reviews I have read of them estimate the cost of the parts and labor that goes into a Nook Color as $200. Thus selling it for $250 probably generates little or no profit for Barnes and Noble for the hardware itself given the added costs of distribution and sales commissions (Best Buy must make some money for selling the Nook and the Nook Color or they would not bother). The money has to be in the books and thus B&N will restrict the reader to B&N books for those books using DRM.

In one of the interviews with a B&N exec that I read online he made a statement saying that B&N wanted to make the device as useful for users as possible. He was then asked if that meant that users could expect a Kindle reader app for the Nook Color and he quickly said no, that would not happen.

As a guess (and it is a guess), I would think that the new Nook will probably make a small profit for B&N, but not enough for them to be selling it as a device alone. It has to be a vehicle for the sale of books and B&N has had a large increase in their profits from eBook sales based on their annual statements.

[geertm]

Originally Posted by MikeFromMesa

The money has to be in the books and thus B&N will restrict the reader to B&N books for those books using DRM.

Unlike the Kindle the Nook ereaders are not restricted to DRM books from the device store. All Nook ereaders also support the Adobe DRM. Which means you can ebooks from almost every bookstore in the world, except Kindle and IBooks.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by geertm

Unlike the Kindle the Nook ereaders are not restricted to DRM books from the device store. All Nook ereaders also support the Adobe DRM. Which means you can ebooks from almost every bookstore in the world, except Kindle and IBooks.

If the inclusion of Wifi in a basic reader is any indication, most typical users seem to be happy buying from the store integrated with the device, and with a nook, that means B&N with, if I understand correctly, their own proprietary DRM.

[Rich_D]

Originally Posted by ApK

"If you post here, and I post here, doesn't that make it OUR thread? I don't see why the first poster should get to delete from OUR thread."

--Jeff Spicoli, from 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'
(it may be a paraphrase.)

Bravo!!

[RAH]

Originally Posted by ApK

If the inclusion of Wifi in a basic reader is any indication, most typical users seem to be happy buying from the store integrated with the device, and with a nook, that means B&N with, if I understand correctly, their own proprietary DRM.

Yes, I agree that most ereader customers buy from the "integrated" store (as I do), which is B&N for the Nook. Yes, it does use a proprietary DRM, I believe.

However, I think the point is that Nook owners can buy from other vendors, even those who use DRM (except from Amazon). Kindle owners are more restricted, I believe, and can mostly only buy from Amazon.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by RAH

However, I think the point is that Nook owners can buy from other vendors, even those who use DRM (except from Amazon). Kindle owners are more restricted, I believe, and can mostly only buy from Amazon.

Not just from Amazon, there are a number of places that sell Kindle books and more that have them for free, but of the handful of big general DRM bookstores, yes, just Amazon.

When people say "only from Amazon" they actually mean "not Kobo, B&N, Sony, B̶o̶r̶d̶e̶r̶s̶ or Google books." That's about it...I don't think Apple counts since only iDevices can shop there, right?

But if the mounting anecdotal evidence on boards like MR are an indication, that fact simply isn't an issue most of the time.
And when it's an issue, it's at least as likely, maybe more likely, to be users of the other books stores who can't get what they want and would like to be able to use Amazon, rather than Amazon users wishing they could shop elsewhere.
(See here, for example.)

There is opportunity to comparison shop, but, again, that doesn't seem to be a big motivator over the convenience of shopping at the integrated store, plus agency pricing has made comparison shopping less fruitful.
Kobo still offers some great coupons, but to offset that, Amazon has good special offers, too.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by =X=

c'mon boswd you know this isn't true quit posting miss information, if you are referring to Adobe/Apple/B&N DRM please state so.

Also many of us are tired of this of this topic that seems to be reiterated for two years know can we please not turn this thread into that argument all over.

=X=

I don't want to turn this into an argument but what may not be a hoop for you because either stripping drm or converting is second nature, it's most certainly is a hoop for the average joe out there.

Pretending the kindle somehow magically accepts and converts all other ebook formats and basically saying it's no big deal, is more misleading than mine.

I can set up a 7.1 surround sound systems with any HDTV and blu ray, to me it's second nature and it's no problem but that doesn't mean it's easier for everyone else.
See what I mean?

Sure it's not a hoop for you but for someone like my father buying a book from Kobo, then sending it to Calibre to be reformatted to Mobi and then be ready to download, well heck, I might as well ask him to build a nuclear power plant.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by boswd

Sure it's not a hoop for you but for someone like my father buying a book from Kobo, then sending it to Calibre to be reformatted to Mobi and then be ready to download, well heck, I might as well ask him to build a nuclear power plant.

This is true. My mother has a Sony reader and I wouldn't tell her that she can read Amazon or B&N books on the reader.

Kobo and other Adobe DRM seems to work fine, though.

That is how I was interpreting the OP -- I understood him to be asking about reading big store books without having to strip DRM or convert.

(Out of curiosity, where are these Mobi stores that sell un-DRM'd Mobi files that can be easily loaded to the Kindle? I'd like to point my Amazon Kindle friend to those.)

[ApK]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

(Out of curiosity, where are these Mobi stores that sell un-DRM'd Mobi files that can be easily loaded to the Kindle? I'd like to point my Amazon Kindle friend to those.)

Have your friend start here:

http://www.smashwords.com
http://www.baen.com
http://www.oreilly.com

plus some authors offer their books in mobi directly.
some examples:
http://www.spacejock.com.au/BuyHal.html
http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

Others can chime in with more, I'm sure.

Then of course you have the free libraries here at MR, http://www.gutenberg.org, etc.

And don't forget the Kindle can also read text, HTML and PDF, plus other stuff that Amazon will convert for you for free via email right to the Kindle, so there is a lot of other stuff floating around the Internet as well.

ApK

[anamardoll]

Thank you. I knew about Baen, but she's more of a non-fiction reader. I'll direct her to Smashwords - I forgot they had non-fiction.

I don't really read text HTML or PDFs on my readers - I prefer epub for reading and like to keep HTML/PDF stuff to the image-heavy comics/manga/etc. But I might be odd in that regard.

Thanks!

[ApK]

Originally Posted by anamardoll

I don't really read text HTML or PDFs on my readers

Me neither, but there is an awful lot of stuff floating around out there in PDF or text: manuals, academic paper, marketing materials, fan-fic, huge collection of jokes about musicians or blondes, etc....so it's nice to remember you have access to those too.

Oh, and blog and news articles...I don't use it myself, but apparently a very popular feature of Calibre is that it can aggregate various web news sources automatically and email them as a doc to your reader, Kindle included.

[boswd]

Originally Posted by ApK

Have your friend start here:

http://www.smashwords.com
http://www.baen.com
http://www.oreilly.com

plus some authors offer their books in mobi directly.
some examples:
http://www.spacejock.com.au/BuyHal.html
http://www.rifters.com/real/shorts.htm

Others can chime in with more, I'm sure.

Then of course you have the free libraries here at MR, http://www.gutenberg.org, etc.

And don't forget the Kindle can also read text, HTML and PDF, plus other stuff that Amazon will convert for you for free via email right to the Kindle, so there is a lot of other stuff floating around the Internet as well.

ApK

anything mainstream? for example if you were a Stephen King fan and wanted to shop around outside of Amazon where would you go for Mobi formats?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by boswd

anything mainstream? for example if you were a Stephen King fan and wanted to shop around outside of Amazon where would you go for Mobi formats?

See my post #52 right above.

"Locked into Amazon" is a lie.
You mean "Locked out of 4 or 5 book sellers who, combined, don't seem to equal Amazon's selection, nor provide much compelling reason for an Amazon customer to shop at them," so say that. Tell the truth and there willl be little debate.

ApK

[ApK]

Originally Posted by boswd

anything mainstream? for example if you were a Stephen King fan and wanted to shop around outside of Amazon where would you go for Mobi formats?

By the way, since you brought him up, I just took a look at Stephen King.
Same price all around that I see...why on earth would a kindle owner want to mess with ADE and cables as users of those other readers would do if they shopped off the device, when it's all the same price and can be bought at Amazon at the touch of a button?

(And he's cheaper in paperback than ebook?! I hate that. I like King, and I appreciate the value of ebooks, I really do, but that just seems wrong to me.)