MyEZread.com eBook Store LAUNCHING!!

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tmclough

If this is correct, then I retract my former to S&S.
And a big, fat to Apple for encouraging such behavior amongst the publishers mentioned, in the first place. (I would have preferred a different digit, but I don't believe that one is available.)

Except Baen, who is distributed by S&S but sell non-DRM e-books via their Webscription affiliate.

[rleguillow]

Hey, its finally here! Congratulations, RobertB. I went right out and signed up and played with it for awhile.

A question - are there plans for other formats or just those two?
A comment - I did find a book I've been looking for and the description was interestingly truncated in the middle of a sentence.
Another comment - regarding the same book - why would it show up in epub format more than once? Same price, different cover picture (one with real picture, one with the default site picture).
Everything new has wrinkles and needs ironing. So it goes. I'm sure little stuff like this will get sorted out soon. Thanks for another place to feed our addiction.

[tzn22]

I agreed with many of the things pointed out before but I think it is worth repeating what I think is important so that you do not simply discard someone idea because no one else had mentioned that they agreed with the idea. Here are my thoughts based on a quick glance at the website.

Sorting
When browsing or searching, I should be able to display the result by sorting by author, title, price, published date.

DMR vs Non-DMR
I should be able to see whether a title has dmr or is dmr-free before buying the ebook.

Cart
Logging in should not be necessary to put ebooks in the cart. Only once people are ready to go through the checkout should they have to log in.

Duplicate of titles
I agree. A title should appear only once independently of the number of format it is published in. The formats in which the title is available should continue to be shown beside the cover of the title.

Epub versus PDF
You should continue to show right up front whether a title is offered in PDF and/or epub. I refuse to buy pdfs. Therefore, I want to be able to see quickly if a book is of any interest to me. I will accept a free ebook in pdf if no other format is available but will not buy an ebook in PDF. I realise that because of that I am not able to read some of the books by author I really like.

Search tool
I do not like that I have to indicate whether my search is by title, by author or both. Frankly, I think that the search engine should be precise enough to bring out the result that are the closest to what I typed in without having to specify what kind of search I want to do. If you intend to keep the search engine as you have it, could you at least make it so that after a search, the system will remember by default the last type of search I did. Most of my searches are done "by author" and right now the default is "by title" and I can assure you that I forget half the time when I do a search to change the selection to "author".

Refine results of search
I agree the search engine results should be refine. Here are two examples of results. When doing a search by author on "WEB Griffin", books from Laura Griffin and other authors show up in the middle of the list of WEB Griffin books. And if I do a search using the criteria "both" I end up with a lot on books on the subject of Internet before seeing anything from WEB Griffin. If you do a search on Katie Love using the criteria "both", her books are listed only on the second page of the results.

Category (list and link)
Once I click on the link at the top of the screen to get to the categories, I noticed a typo in the word "category" in the blue heading.

I think that the grey color of the font selected for the detailed list is too pale and will probably be difficult to read for some persons.

When using the detailed category list under Fiction (45), Political, Sports and Religion seem to present a lot of non fiction books.

The link for Men's adventure is not working.

Series and volume
When a book is part of a serie, the name of the serie should be indicated somewhere as well as the volume in the serie the title represents.

Romance/Erotic Fantasy
In the category list on the left side of the side, Romance and Erotica are grouped together. I think they should be kept in two distinct categories. Personnaly, I like to know what I am reading and where I should read it... Granted, in many cases, the cover will give me a good idea whether a title is erotica or not but not in all cases. Moreover, in grouping romance and erotica together, you may discourage some buyers that are more prude from buying romance novel if they see covers with naked people on it when browsing.

[TonyTerra]

Checked the site out looks interesting,fair prices.Would be more enthusiastic if you had Paypal for your billing.I prefer a more secure payment method.

[MaggieScratch]

Bob, check this out:

http://www.myezread.com/book.asp?EAN=9780203196717

I know you guys don't set the ebook pricing, but seriously? I'm not even completely sure this is a legal ebook.

I own this book in hardback, which I purchased used for apparently a good price--I'm looking around the web and everyone wants $150 for it. I doubt I paid more than $30. Volume I is really hard to get and priced commensurately--but Vol. II shouldn't cost that much.

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by tzn22

I agreed with many of the things pointed out before but I think it is worth repeating what I think is important so that you do not simply discard someone idea because no one else had mentioned that they agreed with the idea. Here are my thoughts based on a quick glance at the website.

Sorting
When browsing or searching, I should be able to display the result by sorting by author, title, price, published date.

DMR vs Non-DMR
I should be able to see whether a title has dmr or is dmr-free before buying the ebook.

Cart
Logging in should not be necessary to put ebooks in the cart. Only once people are ready to go through the checkout should they have to log in.

Duplicate of titles
I agree. A title should appear only once independently of the number of format it is published in. The formats in which the title is available should continue to be shown beside the cover of the title.

Epub versus PDF
You should continue to show right up front whether a title is offered in PDF and/or epub. I refuse to buy pdfs. Therefore, I want to be able to see quickly if a book is of any interest to me. I will accept a free ebook in pdf if no other format is available but will not buy an ebook in PDF. I realise that because of that I am not able to read some of the books by author I really like.

Search tool
I do not like that I have to indicate whether my search is by title, by author or both. Frankly, I think that the search engine should be precise enough to bring out the result that are the closest to what I typed in without having to specify what kind of search I want to do. If you intend to keep the search engine as you have it, could you at least make it so that after a search, the system will remember by default the last type of search I did. Most of my searches are done "by author" and right now the default is "by title" and I can assure you that I forget half the time when I do a search to change the selection to "author".

Refine results of search
I agree the search engine results should be refine. Here are two examples of results. When doing a search by author on "WEB Griffin", books from Laura Griffin and other authors show up in the middle of the list of WEB Griffin books. And if I do a search using the criteria "both" I end up with a lot on books on the subject of Internet before seeing anything from WEB Griffin. If you do a search on Katie Love using the criteria "both", her books are listed only on the second page of the results.

Category (list and link)
Once I click on the link at the top of the screen to get to the categories, I noticed a typo in the word "category" in the blue heading.

I think that the grey color of the font selected for the detailed list is too pale and will probably be difficult to read for some persons.

When using the detailed category list under Fiction (45), Political, Sports and Religion seem to present a lot of non fiction books.

The link for Men's adventure is not working.

Series and volume
When a book is part of a serie, the name of the serie should be indicated somewhere as well as the volume in the serie the title represents.

Romance/Erotic Fantasy
In the category list on the left side of the side, Romance and Erotica are grouped together. I think they should be kept in two distinct categories. Personnaly, I like to know what I am reading and where I should read it... Granted, in many cases, the cover will give me a good idea whether a title is erotica or not but not in all cases. Moreover, in grouping romance and erotica together, you may discourage some buyers that are more prude from buying romance novel if they see covers with naked people on it when browsing.

Dear TZN22:

Thank you! Yes, I agree with a lot of what you said.

We have a small group of eBook Specialists now looking at all of these posts and assembling a list of what can be done quickly, what will take a little while to do, and what cannot be done (likely because the info is not sent to us by the content providers). If they do not send it, it could take a long list of Specialists to do it one at a time.

I also have noticed that in the middle of a sentence an excerpt or sumation simply is lost. These we will try to correct.

We DO want this to be a far better eBook Store and we are listening. SOON, we hope to have things set up where you can post straight to the eBook Specialists and get some answers.

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by TonyTerra

Checked the site out looks interesting,fair prices.Would be more enthusiastic if you had Paypal for your billing.I prefer a more secure payment method.

Dear Tony:

I personally agree with you on this. I do not know WHY we do not have it yet. I will bring this forward to try to get it done!

This should be a top priority!

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Bob, check this out:

http://www.myezread.com/book.asp?EAN=9780203196717

I know you guys don't set the ebook pricing, but seriously? I'm not even completely sure this is a legal ebook.

I own this book in hardback, which I purchased used for apparently a good price--I'm looking around the web and everyone wants $150 for it. I doubt I paid more than $30. Volume I is really hard to get and priced commensurately--but Vol. II shouldn't cost that much.

Dear Maggie:

Will look into this.

[animedude01]

Is anyone else having trouble downloading their books from the site? I bought 4 books yesterday and haven't been able to download them. It keeps giving me a generic error message about not being able to download the book right now, please try again, and it's been doing that since last night.

Also, Robert, when I view my account, for the list of purchased items, it also shows the sql statement. That doesn't bother me much, but may confuse others.

[cfrizz]

The search feature for authors seems to be broken. I can't pull up any titles when I put in the authors names.

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by animedude01

Is anyone else having trouble downloading their books from the site? I bought 4 books yesterday and haven't been able to download them. It keeps giving me a generic error message about not being able to download the book right now, please try again, and it's been doing that since last night.

Also, Robert, when I view my account, for the list of purchased items, it also shows the sql statement. That doesn't bother me much, but may confuse others.

Dear Animedude:

That new Agency Model went into effect. This is where 5 of the PUBLISHERS (not Astak) got together and are forcing that all eBook Stores sell at one uniform price... no discounting. That is causing a real mess for the end users and for Astak. We are trying to get this ironed out. It is likely that this is why you cannot download as the publishers will not permit the download until ALL eBooks under their Agency Model are priced the same everywhere. Yet, we do not yet have what those set prices are and for which titles.

This will not affect most titles... but certainly many, many are impacted.

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by cfrizz

The search feature for authors seems to be broken. I can't pull up any titles when I put in the authors names.

Dear cfrizz:

I will go and check right now!!

Dear cfrizz:

They are working on this author search function now. The webmaster is aware but he is in Taiwan. He is still sleeping now. He will work on this around 5:30 p.m. PDT tonight (during his day).

Thank you!! I am sure he will get this done right away!!

[Robertb]

Originally Posted by MaggieScratch

Bob, check this out:

http://www.myezread.com/book.asp?EAN=9780203196717

I know you guys don't set the ebook pricing, but seriously? I'm not even completely sure this is a legal ebook.

I own this book in hardback, which I purchased used for apparently a good price--I'm looking around the web and everyone wants $150 for it. I doubt I paid more than $30. Volume I is really hard to get and priced commensurately--but Vol. II shouldn't cost that much.

Dear Maggie:

That does seem to be impossible!! Maybe you get a free car with each download or something!

Let me check that out!!

[Robertb]

Dear All:

I now have a good, low priced, eBook Storeat www.MyEZread.com

I have narrowed your recommendations to 14 and we are making those changes. We are improving our store.

ALL of us are angry over this agency model. We do not think it will stand up in court.

In the meantime, I still need your suggestions and your dollars spent on eBooks. Our site is loaded with a lot of good pay titles that are lower than anywhere else and many cost under $6. We are growing our content and going after great science fiction and romance independant authors and publishers that want to discount their eBooks.

At this time, let us pull together! There are some major changes happening here that are all to the good. But... I need volume on that eBook Store to grow.

Please... watch to see the changes and improvements take place, keep purchasing, support our low prices, and help make this eBook Store big enough to battle against what I see as "price collusion"!! Keep your suggestions and comments coming!

[Randal6393]

Bob,

Will keep an eye on your site -- you are working hard to make it a good one. I bought three books and was able to download one. Your shop credited me for the cost of the books that I could not download. That's fair and I am looking forward to the publisher/seller debate getting settled.

Best of luck to you,