What would bring Nook back from the dead?

Originally Posted by pwalker8

They would have to give me a reason to buy from them. I don't particularly care about getting the cheapest price. I do care about getting books that I want, and I do care about finding books that I want, plus I care about being able to remove the DRM and read them on the device that I like to read on. As far as I can tell, the B&N ebook store is the worst of the big four (Kindle, Books, Kobo and B&N) ebook stores. They would need to change the paradigm of ebook stores in a positive way. I really don't see that happening.

Well said, I don't care about absolutely bottom dollar, as long as the book isn't ridiculously higher. Selection and DeDRM, as well as a good overall experience and customer service, are what matter most to me. When Google or Kobo has a book that's close to the Amazon price, I will buy from them just for the delight of annoying Amazon and slowing their March toward 100% monopoly. :-)

[gldnbrwncouches]

Originally Posted by haertig

They could come out with awesome hardware. They could come out with awesome software. They could massively cut the prices of their books. But I still wouldn't buy from them. B&N corporate policy had them throwing their customers under the bus. Once you've been run over by a bus, you have a long memory of that, and a healthy suspicion of all buses well into the future. IMHO, B&N cannot recover, period. You reap what you sow.

I can't agree with this enough. I don't actually want B&N to fail or the Nook to be discontinued, but I've had some terrible times with them. I took a Nook ST w/GL in to address an issue, but to fix it, they just reset it without warning me. I lost my library books and any other sideloaded content I had along with my reading places in them. Another time I brought in my Nook GL+ that wasn't downloading a recently purchased Nook e-book. I was told I'd have to wait for someone on another shift to help me with my "outdated device" or upgrade to a tablet that "wouldn't have such issues".

I purchased my Nooks because they were first with a frontlight that I could demo myself in a store before purchasing (the customer service desk seemed just as excited to demo it with my at the time since it was brand new). Then, they added waterproofing to the Nook GL+ along with the 300ppi E-Ink Carta display at a decently affordable price and it seemed like the obvious choice for an upgrade. Kindle and others arguably had better implementations of these features later on, but the Nook was also touted as being more "open" (HAHA, saw how that has turned out) in comparison to Amazon's offerings and I can't stress enough the ability to demo one in person at my local store.

Last month I got my wife a Kobo Forma, somewhat skeptically though since I had no way to demo the device myself here in the US (Kobo's deal with Walmart has yet to make an appearance at my local stores and Walmart employees seemed clueless about it altogether). After a lot of online research, especially here, Kobo seemed to tick all of the boxes for me. So, I took a chance on it and I'm very glad I made the purchase! I only spent about a half hour with it, setting it up with my wife (like two children with a new toy at Christmas) and I'm ready to ditch my perfectly functional Nook GL+ for a Kobo Clara HD, or possibly another Forma since hers never leaves her side anymore. I'm not sure if the Nook GL3 fixes any of these issues, but the Overdrive integration with Kobo for checking out e-books from my library, the Pocket integration, the ease of managing collections via Calibre, sorting books by series order, the font and layout rendering, and the overall hackability of Kobo (even to the point of possibly replacing Pocket with Wallabag) is an overall win for me in every category. Nook would need a lot more than just new management "righting the ship" to win me back at this point.

[Gardenman]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

They would have to give me a reason to buy from them. I don't particularly care about getting the cheapest price. I do care about getting books that I want, and I do care about finding books that I want, plus I care about being able to remove the DRM and read them on the device that I like to read on. As far as I can tell, the B&N ebook store is the worst of the big four (Kindle, Books, Kobo and B&N) ebook stores. They would need to change the paradigm of ebook stores in a positive way. I really don't see that happening.

I do not think I have ever heard of the - Books - book store

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by gldnbrwncouches

I purchased my Nooks because they were first with a frontlight that I could demo myself in a store before purchasing (the customer service desk seemed just as excited to demo it with my at the time since it was brand new). Then, they added waterproofing to the Nook GL+ along with the 300ppi E-Ink Carta display at a decently affordable price and it seemed like the obvious choice for an upgrade.

I share your experiences with the Nook Simple touch w/Glowlight (that was likely Nook at its peak) and the Glowlight Plus.

I'm ready to ditch my perfectly functional Nook GL+ for a Kobo Clara HD, or possibly another Forma since hers never leaves her side anymore. I'm not sure if the Nook GL3 fixes any of these issues, but the Overdrive integration with Kobo for checking out e-books from my library, the Pocket integration, the ease of managing collections via Calibre, sorting books by series order, the font and layout rendering, and the overall hackability of Kobo (even to the point of possibly replacing Pocket with Wallabag) is an overall win for me in every category.

I have a Glowlight 3 and I'd suggest the Clara over it for the reasons you mentioned. Of course, Glowlight 3 and Clara both lose the waterproofing

The Glowlight 3 software is very slow and buggy and doesn't have the perks you mentioned.

There are two things to be aware of though:

1. The Glowlight 3 has a nicer looking screen than the Clara due to using IR instead of capacitive touch. Putting the Glowlight Plus (capacitive) next to the Glowlight 3 (IR) you can see that the 3 has more contrast.
   
2. I think the Nook still does a better job of layout rendering than Kobo does. The Nook does a very good job at auto-hyphenation where with the Kobo I will see the occasional line made up of five widely spaced words. When it comes to the actual reading experience, Nook still does a very good job.
   
   I use ePub on Nook and kepub on Kobo and that could be the difference. But then for a bunch of the Kobo advantages, you need to use kepub.

Still, with those caveats, I'd recommend a Kobo Clara over a Nook Glowlight 3. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Still, with those caveats, I'd recommend a Kobo Clara over a Nook Glowlight 3. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

Interesting to see so many Nook guys gravitating to Kobo platform. I've seen a lot more, besides those in this thread. I have no dog in this hunt as I've never been a big ebook customer of BN's, only paper (and still am, for paper only). But I agree the Kobo platform has become pretty compelling and IMHO, is the best thing going as a serious alternative to Big River for both ereaders and ebooks.

BN is hemorrhaging away their best ebook customers.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Gardenman

I do not think I have ever heard of the - Books - book store

Apple. They renamed iBooks to Books.

[NickyWithNook]

They have ghastly customer service. And most people don't want to download books, strip the DRM, and sideload them, or whatever you have to do. I really just want to buy a book and read it, AND not have to worry about it disappearing for some reason. If I have to do a bunch of other stuff to have confidence I'll continue to have the books I've bought available to me, I'll give up and buy stuff from somewhere else. That's exactly what I've done.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

I really just want to buy a book and read it, AND not have to worry about it disappearing for some reason. If I have to do a bunch of other stuff to have confidence I'll continue to have the books I've bought available to me, I'll give up and buy stuff from somewhere else. That's exactly what I've done.

I thought as long as you stay in the B&N ecosystem, B&N was still pretty good. The problems I've seen with Nook seem to be related to downloading books or sideloading them.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by maximus83

Interesting to see so many Nook guys gravitating to Kobo platform. I've seen a lot more, besides those in this thread.

I suspect it's either because both Nook and Kobo use ePubs or it's because the people that chose Nook in the first place we're avoiding Kindle for one reason or another.

...I agree the Kobo platform has become pretty compelling and IMHO, is the best thing going as a serious alternative to Big River for both ereaders and ebooks.

BN is hemorrhaging away their best ebook customers.

Kobo partnering with Walmart (even if you do have to order the reader online for the most part) makes them more compelling in the US.

If Walmart stores took Kobo readers more seriously, it would be much better.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I thought as long as you stay in the B&N ecosystem, B&N was still pretty good. The problems I've seen with Nook seem to be related to downloading books or sideloading them.

Caveat if one doesn't DeDRM is you're then reliant on the continued health of the company providing your ebooks.

I expect the same reasons why we DeDRM (so we don't lose access to our books) are the same considerations other people have in determining what ebook store to buy from. Unfortunately, Nook's on shaky ground.

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

Caveat if one doesn't DeDRM is you're then reliant on the continued health of the company providing your ebooks.

I expect the same reasons why we DeDRM (so we don't lose access to our books) are the same considerations other people have in determining what ebook store to buy from. Unfortunately, Nook's on shaky ground.

Since you're an Apple guy already: Is the Apple bookstore with their epub format and DRM scheme a pretty viable alternative to BN (along with Kobo, Google, and a handful of others) for us MR folks who like to get epub books and liberate them?

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by maximus83

Since you're an Apple guy already: Is the Apple bookstore with their epub format and DRM scheme a pretty viable alternative to BN (along with Kobo, Google, and a handful of others) for us MR folks who like to get epub books and liberate them?

Lol, I've never bought a single book from Apple.

I think the DRM removal solutions for Apple FairPlay require that you own a Mac? I dunno, I'm on Windows. I've switched from B&N to Kobo. Well, there was some Kindle in the middle but just a handful of books since the quality of their azw3 graphic novel downloads was pretty poor.

Plus, they're the ones who started agency pricing so I'm disinclined to buy books from Apple.

[Wearever]

I don't think anything at this point will bring B&N back from the dead. I started with B&N buying my first e ink and e books from them. I switched to Kindle 100%. Although I wouldn't rule out Kobo. I might still try a Kobo at some point, even if they only can be ordered online from Walmart.

[NickyWithNook]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I thought as long as you stay in the B&N ecosystem, B&N was still pretty good. The problems I've seen with Nook seem to be related to downloading books or sideloading them.

I accidentally bought a book twice - I'm not sure if I clicked "buy" twice or if it was an error on their part - and I emailed them immediately asking them to remove one of the purchases. It took way too much effort, but I did get them to refund that purchase, but then periodically they would take the book off my account, and I'd have to email them to tell them that I had paid for it and it had been refunded because I'd paid twice. Every time it was too much work to get that book returned to my account. Finally, it went on sale cheap on Kindle and I bought it there.

It shouldn't have been so much work, and they shouldn't be going through my account and "fixing" it over and over again so I have to re-establish every time that I legitimately own the book. It's frustrating and a sign of very bad customer service IMO.

[Wearever]

Originally Posted by NickyWithNook

I accidentally bought a book twice - I'm not sure if I clicked "buy" twice or if it was an error on their part - and I emailed them immediately asking them to remove one of the purchases. It took way too much effort, but I did get them to refund that purchase, but then periodically they would take the book off my account, and I'd have to email them to tell them that I had paid for it and it had been refunded because I'd paid twice. Every time it was too much work to get that book returned to my account. Finally, it went on sale cheap on Kindle and I bought it there.

It shouldn't have been so much work, and they shouldn't be going through my account and "fixing" it over and over again so I have to re-establish every time that I legitimately own the book. It's frustrating and a sign of very bad customer service IMO.

I had this happen to me also. The B&N book was $16.99 and they charged me twice for the same book. It took many attempts to get it right. Spent way too many calls with CS. On Amazon it would have been corrected with one chat. I kept thinking about how much easier it was on Amazon while I was talking to B&N CS.