O'Reilly Publishing is closing its online store

[Randy11]

Originally Posted by tomsem

You can download 'content' (reflowable text, fixed layout, video, audio) and consume it with the Queue app. But it is not packaged as ePub or PDF such that you could use a different app.

They have had promotions in the past (July) for $199/year. That's what I have been paying for the last couple of years. But it is not clear this will continue. They seem to be in cost-cutting mode.

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the subscription allows you to read all their books online, not download them.

Thanks to you for your replies Tomsem and HarryT.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by HarryT

No, the subscription allows you to read all their books online, not download them.

The way the subscription works is three fold.

First, you can read all the books and watch all the videos on line.

Second, from the safari app on the iDevice, you can download up to 3 ebooks to be read inside the app offline.

Third, you get a certain number of tokens each month that will accumulate for a time period. You can use those tokens to download an individual book in a couple of different formats, PDF and epub are the two that I use. Those books are yours to read via whatever reader device you want to use. They do have a watermark so if you post it somewhere, your name is all over it.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

The way the subscription works is three fold.

First, you can read all the books and watch all the videos on line.

Second, from the safari app on the iDevice, you can download up to 3 ebooks to be read inside the app offline.

Third, you get a certain number of tokens each month that will accumulate for a time period. You can use those tokens to download an individual book in a couple of different formats, PDF and epub are the two that I use. Those books are yours to read via whatever reader device you want to use. They do have a watermark so if you post it somewhere, your name is all over it.

This may have been true at one time (or maybe you have these terms grandfathered from a previous plan) but the current terms are:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/pricing/

- Unlimited books/videos/audios/conference talks
- no limit on content downloads with Queue app (iOS or Android)
- live online training
- etc.

There is nothing about 'tokens' for downloading ePub or PDF.

With the demise of O'Reilly's bookstore, it seems it will no longer be possible to 'upgrade' a print edition to ebook (sometimes for as little as $5, via 'honor system') or to get multiple formats.

But I vastly prefer subscription to 'collecting' technology books.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tomsem

This may have been true at one time (or maybe you have these terms grandfathered from a previous plan) but the current terms are:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/pricing/

- Unlimited books/videos/audios/conference talks
- no limit on content downloads with Queue app (iOS or Android)
- live online training
- etc.

There is nothing about 'tokens' for downloading ePub or PDF.

With the demise of O'Reilly's bookstore, it seems it will no longer be possible to 'upgrade' a print edition to ebook (sometimes for as little as $5, via 'honor system') or to get multiple formats.

But I vastly prefer subscription to 'collecting' technology books.

Could be that I am grandfathered. I have a grandfathered audible account as well.

One thing that I've noticed is that I've seen a shift from books and articles to videos not only at O'Reilly but in a lot of online learning sites. I absolutely hate learning videos. I learn best by reading, not by listening or watching some guy yammer. Amazon has gone almost all videos and simulated labs in their online classes. I guess it helps some people.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

Could be that I am grandfathered. I have a grandfathered audible account as well.

One thing that I've noticed is that I've seen a shift from books and articles to videos not only at O'Reilly but in a lot of online learning sites. I absolutely hate learning videos. I learn best by reading, not by listening or watching some guy yammer. Amazon has gone almost all videos and simulated labs in their online classes. I guess it helps some people.

Yes, I'm pretty much the same as far as training videos go. I learn by doing, for the most part, not by watching. But SBO gives you a choice, which I like. For quick overviews video is okay. But when it goes on for hours and hours, I get impatient.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by tomsem

Yes, I'm pretty much the same as far as training videos go. I learn by doing, for the most part, not by watching. But SBO gives you a choice, which I like. For quick overviews video is okay. But when it goes on for hours and hours, I get impatient.

You are way more patient than I am.

I like audiobooks from the standpoint of having something going on in the car while I'm driving, but learning requires focus and concentration and my mind starts to wander pretty quickly for such things. Usually, I'm reaching for a manual within 5 minutes of a training video. I generally prefer to move at a much faster pace than most training videos.

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

You are way more patient than I am.

I like audiobooks from the standpoint of having something going on in the car while I'm driving, but learning requires focus and concentration and my mind starts to wander pretty quickly for such things. Usually, I'm reaching for a manual within 5 minutes of a training video. I generally prefer to move at a much faster pace than most training videos.

I guess I should have said 'when it goes for hours and hours, I don't bother with it'

[fjtorres]

O'Reilly belatedly explains:

https://the-digital-reader.com/2017/...-pdf-editions/

They are looking at ways to get pdfs back on sale.
(Check the comments.)

[joblack]

As I suspected above the PDF version of Google's O'Reilly offer is just a (bad) conversion of the epub version

https://twitter.com/martinkl/status/880541924335267841

I suspect if Google does not care about the PDF version the epub version is made unenthusiastic as well.

O'Reilly's explanation is a little bit flawed because they could keep it's e-book store open without too much extra costs. The format (epub, PDF, mobi) probably still need be there anyway for the other shops and the creation of the paperback version.

After a few days I am still very unhappy and disappointed so my money will go to other publishers in the future.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by joblack

O'Reilly's explanation is a little bit flawed because they could keep it's e-book store open without too much extra costs.

Do you have any insight into what it costs to run an online bookstore?

[fjtorres]

Way back in 2011 the Adobe Tax alone ran $75,000 a year just to sign up.

https://the-digital-reader.com/2011/...obe-tax-today/

O'Reilly didn't pay that but since even the smallest of independents quietly paid it, it mustn't have been too out of line with their other costs.
Which makes sense since they'd likely need at least a handful of full time employees which in the tech arena means something in the the $50k-100k apiece.
Add in servers or AWS hosting costs, server software licensing, payment processing...

It's a safe bet the store cost them in the low six figures at a minimum. Low seven figures is not out of the question. That cost has to be spread across the total number of units sold by the store itself and then compared to the cost of simply uploading the master files to an ebook retailer.

The way the mainstream ebook market has evolved, most consumers go *solely* through the big stores. Even Baen had to adjust their business model and pricing to tap into that channel.

With O'Reilly selling through the stores and their own site they know how the split works and it sounds like the mainstream stores have been soaking up the bulk of their sales at a time when non-fiction book sales are declining across the board. That left them two options: pull out of the stores and force users to go through their store or close their own store.

One channel had to go and the one bringing in the smallest number of sales lost.

As the article at Nate's made clear, the problem isn't the mainstream ebookstores: it's the internet. The market is splitting into two: those that truly need professional grade information and can afford to pay for it on an ongoing basis (SAFARI) and those that can't afford it or can get by with "good enough", which can be found free on the internet.

Technology disruption hits tech companies, too.

[pwalker8]

One would point out that the online sales tax is unsettled law. Currently, the rule of thumb is, if you don't have a physical presence in a state, you aren't obligated to collect that state's sales tax. A number of states have what is known as the Amazon Law, which says that companies of a certain size are obligated to collect sales tax. Those laws have not been tested in court yet. Some companies of a certain size will charge sales tax, simply because of potential liability. Amazon collects sales tax, but then again, they actually have a physical presence (warehouses, etc...) in most of the states.

[joblack]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you have any insight into what it costs to run an online bookstore?

Based on my background experience I have a good educated guess what server hosting and traffic will cost. The O'Reilly e-books are without watermarking so that O'Reilly doesn't have to save the e-books several times or generate each e-book individually. The complete data (e-books and videos) should be not more than 500 GBytes. For the worst case let it be 1 to 2 TBytes - for enterprise hosting this is still not so much data..

And don't they need the data, at least for videos, for the Safari subscription anyway?

Development costs for the website will be minimal because the shop won't change that much and the main topic will be maintenance costs. And the logistic for shipping the paperback books is not needed in that form anymore.

The most costs will be the support but they have the support for their Safari subscription anyway so they only have to extend their department a little.

So an e-book shop would be a niche market but should not be that expensive.

[Randy11]

If I have an e-reader (e-ink screen), it's to avoid the usage of a LCD screen to read a book : Safari isn't a solution for me. Yes, a client could be exist for Android, but it's not sure that all e-readers can use it, or you can have always access to the books after an upgrade of the client.. :-(

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by tomsem

This may have been true at one time (or maybe you have these terms grandfathered from a previous plan) but the current terms are:

https://www.safaribooksonline.com/pricing/

- Unlimited books/videos/audios/conference talks
- no limit on content downloads with Queue app (iOS or Android)
- live online training
- etc.

There is nothing about 'tokens' for downloading ePub or PDF.

With the demise of O'Reilly's bookstore, it seems it will no longer be possible to 'upgrade' a print edition to ebook (sometimes for as little as $5, via 'honor system') or to get multiple formats.

But I vastly prefer subscription to 'collecting' technology books.

Yes, that's the way it used to work.
There where some limited and less expensive plans, that's gone.

That's a serious bummer.