Books On Board Ceased Operations

[Lemurion]

Yeah, I stopped using BoB because it just became too much of a pain to navigate the site and filter out the romance for the books I did want.

[MickiTee]

What a nuisance. Just copied all my order details, but there's no link to the Wishlist. I know some of the books on it, but not all. Hope they're back up and running soon otherwise I don't know where I'm going to shop. I don't like Kobo as you have to buy books one at a time and I average about 7 books when I buy.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by jersysman

Another in a seemingly long line and ebook sites going under. Plus, this and Fictionwise were two of my favorite accounts. They did offer good discounts. This is in no way good for the consumer. There has to be a place for these independent sites.

Well, Fictionwise sealed their own fate with Indy authors, quite bluntly.

I have a very nice clientele list, but none of them were willing to give Fictionwise an exclusive deal on their lists, that's absolute insanity. No Indy author is going to do that with their backlist, or for that matter, new books. I had clients that originally (some 3-4 years ago) wanted to be on FW, but took one look at their T&C for publishers and just laughed out loud, turned around and LEFT, publishing instead at Amazon or Amazon + Aggregators.

Hitch

[Catlady]

I had used BOB only for audiobooks--with their discount codes, I was able to get some good deals.

[koland]

Originally Posted by Hitch

Well, Fictionwise sealed their own fate with Indy authors, quite bluntly.

I have a very nice clientele list, but none of them were willing to give Fictionwise an exclusive deal on their lists, that's absolute insanity. No Indy author is going to do that with their backlist, or for that matter, new books. I had clients that originally (some 3-4 years ago) wanted to be on FW, but took one look at their T&C for publishers and just laughed out loud, turned around and LEFT, publishing instead at Amazon or Amazon + Aggregators.

Hitch

Allromance also tries to get exclusives - but they allow non-exclusive at a lower rate.

What killed FW, though, was B&N bought them and then gutted the catalog and dumped all but the propriety DRM- scheme (which they kept for exactly one eInk model, then killed off).

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by koland

Allromance also tries to get exclusives - but they allow non-exclusive at a lower rate.

What killed FW, though, was B&N bought them and then gutted the catalog and dumped all but the propriety DRM- scheme (which they kept for exactly one eInk model, then killed off).

Yep. Once publishers stop making Secure eReader format Fictionwise no longer had mainstream new books other than Indies. B&N had no reason to keep them around once that format became obsolete.

[Ken Maltby]

Originally Posted by Blossom

Yep. Once publishers stop making Secure eReader format Fictionwise no longer had mainstream new books other than Indies. B&N had no reason to keep them around once that format became obsolete.

True, but it also gave B&N an epub DRM that didn't require an authentication
server be maintained. And that would have no per book cost for them.

Luck;
Ken

[Katsunami]

This is crap. I've bought some books from BooksOnBoard, for quite good prices.

We are "expected" to buy stuff from Bol.com or Kobo here in the Netherlands, but the first is certainly not going to happen. Some ePubs at Bol happily cost exactly the same or more than the paperback versions, and Kobo is often only slightly cheaper. I don't buy at Amazon.com because I want my base format to be ePub.

The possible demise of BooksOnBoard shows that I've been right all along the last 10+ years, when hollering and screaming: "Download your stuff! Remove the DRM! Create Backups! If you cannot do this, then don't buy! Don't trust the seller!" BooksOnBoard provides downloads: for now. Many other stores don't, be it for books, music or games.

I hope they come back, because I'd hate to loose a good source for ePubs.

The stores I've been using are Diesel EBooks, BooksOnBoard, Kobo and Feedbooks, always picking the cheapest for a particular book. What I'd like is a way to buy books at Waterstones, Foyles, or WHSmith in the UK: They often have good prices too, but I can't buy from them either because I'm not in the UK, or don't have a UK credit card. (If at all possible, I'd like to not use proxies or other "illegal" means to trick them.)

edit: WHSmiths links to the Kobo website; the price at Kobo in Euro's is actually higher than the price at WHSmiths' site, when converting from pounds to euro's.

[JSWolf]

BoB says they are not going away. Why is everyone acting like BoB is going away?

[Katsunami]

Who says they're NOT going away? It is not at all guaranteed that they can get a "new business model" off the ground.

Selling ebooks only has one business model: Sell the books that people want, and sell them cheaper than other stores.

I've split series between stores, so I could save €5 in the end. Only €5, but hey; it's enough for another book. And sometimes the savings were bigger than that by splitting large series over mulitple stores.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

BoB says they are not going away. Why is everyone acting like BoB is going away?

They have gone away.
They say they are going to come back.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

They have gone away.
They say they are going to come back.

By gone away, I mean gone and not to return.

[jersysman]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

By gone away, I mean gone and not to return.

Well to me it is permanent UNTIL (and that is a big until) they return.

[cromag]

I've seen notices (and restructurings) like this before. If BOB does come back (in anything that resembles its current form) it will be one of the very, very few.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by jersysman

Well to me it is permanent UNTIL (and that is a big until) they return.