waht stores have more e-books than Kobo?

[cybmole]

several times recently I have tried a comparison shop - Amazon, then Kobo, only to find the book in question is not even IN the Kobo store.

So what strictly legal alternatives are there to the geeky fudge of shop-at-amazon, strip DRM, convert to epub., sideload...

As a test case, look for epub of the Barry Eisler series of "John Rain" books which have now been re-releases with new titles & new author edits.
Amazon has them, but not Kobo, not sainsburys ebooks, not waterstones...
I suppose he could have done some exclusive Kindle only deal but I see no mention of it.

and there have been other hard to find authors, just can't think of one right this minute

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Barry-Eisler...rnid=492562011

[AnemicOak]

On the Eisler books, the ones he's self-pubbed he's chosen to only make them available at Amazon. Others are published by Amazon now and are exclusively sold there. AFAIK most if not all of the self-pubbed ones are DRM free (not sure about the Amazon pubbed Thomas & Mercer ones) so don't need to be stripped.

[simond]

I tend to use http://luzme.com to find the cheapest place.

[cybmole]

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

On the Eisler books, the ones he's self-pubbed he's chosen to only make them available at Amazon. Others are published by Amazon now and are exclusively sold there. AFAIK most if not all of the self-pubbed ones are DRM free (not sure about the Amazon pubbed Thomas & Mercer ones) so don't need to be stripped.

yes I knew that, but that should not apply to the main John Rain series, the ones you refer to are labelled "exclusive to amazon"

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by cybmole

yes I knew that, but that should not apply to the main John Rain series, the ones you refer to are labelled "exclusive to amazon"

The main John Rain series is re-published (self-published) & renamed by Eisler himself (he got his rights back from his publisher). He chooses to only publish them through Amazon, at least that's what he stated when he first started renaming them. If he's changed his stance I've seen nothing about it and I've seen them for sale in no other stores where it would be up to him to make them available.

[cybmole]

ok, my bad choice of test case.

but roughly how many unique book titles do Kobo have compared with Amazon -
& a fair comparison should I guess be "amazon with self published amazon-only books excluded".

any easy way to tell ?

are they comparable on that basis, or is Kobo store smaller ?

[GeoffR]

Originally Posted by cybmole

So what strictly legal alternatives are there to the geeky fudge of shop-at-amazon, strip DRM, convert to epub., sideload...

If the author has chosen to do an exclusive deal with Amazon then buying at Amazon and converting to epub is the only legal thing you can do. But having said that, once you have the various tools set up, that usually involves only an extra mouse click or two compared to buying the epub directly anyway.

If the book is self published but the author doesn't have an exclusive deal with Amazon, then the only other thing you can do is to contact the author and ask them to upload the book to other retailers.

If it is a publisher published book, especially a big publisher, then you could contact the retailer and ask them to get the book. But in practice I have found it is faster to contact the publisher and ask them to upload the book.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by cybmole

ok, my bad choice of test case.

but roughly how many unique book titles do Kobo have compared with Amazon -
& a fair comparison should I guess be "amazon with self published amazon-only books excluded".

any easy way to tell ?

are they comparable on that basis, or is Kobo store smaller ?

In general I find that if it's a book from a large or mid size publisher then Kobo's selection is much the same as Amazon's. Kobo seems to be missing a few small publishers and digital first publishers that Amazon has, but other than that it seems much the same. Prices are often another story. Kobo is often more expensive for titles I shop for except if it's a discountable title where I can use a 45% off or better coupon code. This is all from a US perspective, it may differ slightly for someone from the UK.