Effect of Kindle on Sony's Content Offerings - Page 20

vivaldirules · 10-08-2009, 01:28 PM

Yes, I have plenty of books to read on my Sony - just not the ones I most want to read right now. There are plenty of books that I want to read on my Sony but can't but I could if I had a Kindle. I don't want to buy pbooks and I don't want to buy ebooks in other formats and remove the DRM and shift them. I just want to buy the books I want to read and read them. Sony lags far behind in offering that service to me and other vendors are not filling the gap. So why wouldn't I gripe?

This will then lead you to "So why don't you buy a Kindle"?

pilotbob · 10-08-2009, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

This will then lead you to "So why don't you buy a Kindle"?

Right?

BOb

DMcCunney · 10-08-2009, 02:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

The question that I prefer to ask is not "can I get any book I want for the eBook reader", but rather "can I get sufficient books that interest me to keep me busy reading on my reader?" Provided the answer to that latter question is "yes", then I'm happy. Given that I have several lifetimes worth of books that I want to read on my Sony/Bookeen/iRex/Whatever, I have no complaints.

Well, yes, that too.

I have about 3,500 ebooks on my devices, and I estimate I may have read a quarter of them. I may or may not get around to reading all of them. But they are all things I added because I might want to read them, and if spare time and desire is there, I have them.

There are probably many things I want not available as ebooks, but hey, I still buy paper books, too. For me, ebooks are an additional format, not a replacement for paper.

I long ago decided that acquiring books and reading them were se[perate and distinct pleasures, and I wouldn't feel guilty about getting six books and having a chance to read two before getting more.

The nice things about ebooks is that you don't need to call the paramedics if my unread stack topples over on me...

______
Dennis

lilac_jive · 10-08-2009, 06:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

Yes, I have plenty of books to read on my Sony - just not the ones I most want to read right now. There are plenty of books that I want to read on my Sony but can't but I could if I had a Kindle. I don't want to buy pbooks and I don't want to buy ebooks in other formats and remove the DRM and shift them. I just want to buy the books I want to read and read them. Sony lags far behind in offering that service to me and other vendors are not filling the gap. So why wouldn't I gripe?

This will then lead you to "So why don't you buy a Kindle"?

I can understand why you're frustrated. I guess I'm lucky, Sony kicks ass with romance, which is what I primarily read. I haven't had a problem with anything else I want to read.

I do get frustrated with the Kindle-only freebies, but since I have an iPhone I broke down and got the Kindle app. It's actually quite nice for when I'm stuck in traffic

I don't purchase any books for it though (except for the two Dennis Batchelder books).

Just out of curiosity, what books are you finding on Amazon but not for Sony?

Xerxes · 10-08-2009, 06:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I see on Amazon's web page today that they claim "We added more than 75,000 books in just the last five months." Sony have added only 16,000 books in that time. There are days when I just want to throw my Reader into the nearest dumpster.

Beauty is, you aren't stuck with only one store as far as options go.

JSWolf · 10-08-2009, 06:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vivaldirules

I see on Amazon's web page today that they claim "We added more than 75,000 books in just the last five months." Sony have added only 16,000 books in that time. There are days when I just want to throw my Reader into the nearest dumpster.

How many of the 75000 eBooks Amazon is boasting about are Topaz? Those don't count. How many are self-published? Those don't count. How many are public domain? Those don't count. Now how many are left from this 750000?

JSWolf · 10-08-2009, 06:58 PM

Once Sony goes ePub, I do feel that they will have even more clout with publishers as they can then say "Look, we support ePub so your books at our store can be purchased by owners of Sony, Opus, iRex, Plastic Logic, Cool-er, Pocketbook, V3/V3 & clones, etc." Whereas if you go with Amazon, you just get Kindle owners which overall is a smaller number."

vivaldirules · 11-06-2009, 07:51 AM

In the past four weeks Sony have added 2,700 new titles and now have roughly 123,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers.

vivaldirules · 12-02-2009, 08:43 AM

In the past four weeks Sony have added 2,300 new titles and now have roughly 125,500 ebooks for sale for the Readers.

vivaldirules · 12-11-2009, 09:14 AM

In the past week Sony have reduced by over 17,000 (about 14%) the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 108,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers all in epub format. I assume the drop comes from not having converted all of their previous offerings from LRX format to epub. We'll just have to see if they convert the rest.

lilac_jive · 12-11-2009, 09:46 PM

Wow that's kind of goofy, but makes sense. It's a worthwhile loss for now.

vivaldirules · 12-18-2009, 09:00 AM

In the past week Sony have increased by about 3600 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. I don't know how many of these are new titles and how many are ones they used to sell in LRX format but have just now reformatted. They're rate of adding new titles has typically been under 100 per day. They now have roughly 112,000 ebooks for sale which is still about 14,000 fewer than they had before they made the switch to epub last Friday.

vivaldirules · 12-25-2009, 09:56 AM

In the past week Sony have increased by about 4200 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 116,000 ebooks for sale which is still about 10,000 fewer than they had before they made the switch to epub two weeks ago. If they maintain this rate, Sony will likely have finished the switch to epub of all of their titles by the end of January.

vivaldirules · 01-08-2010, 09:52 AM

In the past two weeks Sony have increased by about 6600 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 123,500 ebooks for sale which is still about 3,000 fewer than they had in early December before they made the switch to epub. Since the switch, Sony had been adding roughly 1000 ebooks a day which I assume meant that someone there was doing a batch conversion of about that many books every day and then they'd upload them to their collection. Well, that process essentially stopped this past weekend and they are just trickling in at about the same rate of 90 new books per day which are probably new titles.

So the question in my mind is "What about the 3000 or 4000 books that haven't been converted yet? Will Sony convert them or are they simply not going to be made available again?" I'd be interested if anyone finds any books that they bought in LRX (BBeB) format which are still shown as unavailable now (because they don't have the corresponding epub of the book).

kenschunk · 01-08-2010, 11:43 AM

I've still got a few showing "Available Soon" on my list:

Two I paid for, and are still missing...

"No Exit" by Larry Niven
"Havoc's Sword" by Dewey Lambdin

plus two of the "Classics" series:

"Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll
"Bible - King James Version"

That's out of 124 in my library, so I'm missing a bitmore than 3% of the books I've purchased from Sony.

Now, the two I paid for probably aren't all that popular of books, and I could guess that perhaps it's a publisher issue. The classics ones, however,.... really? I'm supposed to believe that those two were lower priority to convert than, say, "Billy Budd" or "Omoo" by Melville?

12-11-2009, 09:14 AM	#295
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past week Sony have reduced by over 17,000 (about 14%) the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 108,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers all in epub format. I assume the drop comes from not having converted all of their previous offerings from LRX format to epub. We'll just have to see if they convert the rest. Attached Thumbnails

12-25-2009, 09:56 AM	#298
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past week Sony have increased by about 4200 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 116,000 ebooks for sale which is still about 10,000 fewer than they had before they made the switch to epub two weeks ago. If they maintain this rate, Sony will likely have finished the switch to epub of all of their titles by the end of January. Attached Thumbnails

01-08-2010, 09:52 AM	#299
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past two weeks Sony have increased by about 6600 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. They now have roughly 123,500 ebooks for sale which is still about 3,000 fewer than they had in early December before they made the switch to epub. Since the switch, Sony had been adding roughly 1000 ebooks a day which I assume meant that someone there was doing a batch conversion of about that many books every day and then they'd upload them to their collection. Well, that process essentially stopped this past weekend and they are just trickling in at about the same rate of 90 new books per day which are probably new titles. So the question in my mind is "What about the 3000 or 4000 books that haven't been converted yet? Will Sony convert them or are they simply not going to be made available again?" I'd be interested if anyone finds any books that they bought in LRX (BBeB) format which are still shown as unavailable now (because they don't have the corresponding epub of the book). Attached Thumbnails

01-08-2010, 11:43 AM	#300
kenschunk Member Posts: 22 Karma: 502 Join Date: May 2008 Location: Saratoga Springs, NY Device: History:PRS-505, 700, Kindle-2. Current: Nook 3G, Nook Color	Missing books I've still got a few showing "Available Soon" on my list: Two I paid for, and are still missing... "No Exit" by Larry Niven "Havoc's Sword" by Dewey Lambdin plus two of the "Classics" series: "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll "Bible - King James Version" That's out of 124 in my library, so I'm missing a bitmore than 3% of the books I've purchased from Sony. Now, the two I paid for probably aren't all that popular of books, and I could guess that perhaps it's a publisher issue. The classics ones, however,.... really? I'm supposed to believe that those two were lower priority to convert than, say, "Billy Budd" or "Omoo" by Melville? Last edited by kenschunk; 01-08-2010 at 11:44 AM. Reason: they told me there would be no math....

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10-08-2009, 01:28 PM	#286
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	Yes, I have plenty of books to read on my Sony - just not the ones I most want to read right now. There are plenty of books that I want to read on my Sony but can't but I could if I had a Kindle. I don't want to buy pbooks and I don't want to buy ebooks in other formats and remove the DRM and shift them. I just want to buy the books I want to read and read them. Sony lags far behind in offering that service to me and other vendors are not filling the gap. So why wouldn't I gripe? This will then lead you to "So why don't you buy a Kindle"?

10-08-2009, 06:58 PM	#292
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 73,970 Karma: 128903378 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	Once Sony goes ePub, I do feel that they will have even more clout with publishers as they can then say "Look, we support ePub so your books at our store can be purchased by owners of Sony, Opus, iRex, Plastic Logic, Cool-er, Pocketbook, V3/V3 & clones, etc." Whereas if you go with Amazon, you just get Kindle owners which overall is a smaller number."

11-06-2009, 07:51 AM	#293
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past four weeks Sony have added 2,700 new titles and now have roughly 123,000 ebooks for sale for the Readers.

12-02-2009, 08:43 AM	#294
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past four weeks Sony have added 2,300 new titles and now have roughly 125,500 ebooks for sale for the Readers.

12-11-2009, 09:46 PM	#296
lilac_jive Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,870 Karma: 27376 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Device: PRS-505	Wow that's kind of goofy, but makes sense. It's a worthwhile loss for now.

12-18-2009, 09:00 AM	#297
vivaldirules When's Doughnut Day? Posts: 10,059 Karma: 13675475 Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: Houston, TX, US Device: Sony PRS-505, iPad	In the past week Sony have increased by about 3600 the number of titles they have for sale at their ebook store. I don't know how many of these are new titles and how many are ones they used to sell in LRX format but have just now reformatted. They're rate of adding new titles has typically been under 100 per day. They now have roughly 112,000 ebooks for sale which is still about 14,000 fewer than they had before they made the switch to epub last Friday.

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