Europe confirms raids on ebook publishers

ePub is all very well ...

But despite the theoretical competition, even prices there have gone up. Waterstones - the retailer that Sony has tended to push their customers to - didn't even attempt to compete when Kindle appeared in the UK; some of their prices actually went up.

And that was before the introduction of Agency Pricing which pushed up prices of some books by a few pounds.

Must be a retard then

As have a Kindle.

Never paid for a book on it though, and haven't stopped using it since I bought it. I'm pretty impressed with it to be honest.

Am I still a retard? I bought a subsidised piece of hardware that does exactly what I want, and hasn't cost me a penny to use (well, maybe a few pence in charging).

Locked in Ecosystem? You can read whatever you like on it - doesn't have to come from Amazon. In what way is that locked in? Please explain. Or don't you know, and are only regurgitating what you read on slashdot?

Yes, but

There are of course plenty of free eBooks available - but that's only a helpful argument if they're the sort of books that someone wants to read.

Resources like Project Gutenberg, or the free books available from Kobo, Baen and many other sources do mean that yes, you can find plenty of stuff to read without spending money.

But if someone wants to read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, or the latest Dan Brown, or any of a huge number of other things, pointing out that they can get anything by Dickens from Gutenberg, or some free SciFi from Baen doesn't solve their problem, does it?

Also see reviews

Quite a few reviewers of this book are giving it one star and commenting that its part of the price fixing "scam".

So while publishers can fix prices, they are probably going to have to accept poor reader reviews on Kindle. The knock-on effect is that prospective readers see price £stupid, rating (*) and go and look for something better.

Waterstones are very pricey

With a price differential like that, it's clearly not an agency priced book; despite the horrible interface, it's worth checking with WH Smith, Kobo and some of the other stores that sell books in ePub format. Waterstones is very often the most expensive.

I did a few comparisons last year; four books that I bought to take on holiday in August were £17.18 at WH Smith, £17.12 on Amazon, or I could have paid £33.86 from Waterstones.

Even after the introduction of agency pricing, Waterstones were still expensive - a selection of books I was tracking last summer was £184.62 on Amazon, £205.95 at WH Smith, and £227.95 with Waterstones.

If I were Sony, I'd very much regret having jumped into bed with one of the priciest eBook vendors in the UK; it can't be doing the image of their readers much good at all.

Re: Neg repping the first AC post

You may call them 'fanbois', but having read their posts I'd be more inclined to call them 'better informed users'.

It's not fanboi-ism to correct technical FUD. And no, I don't own a Kindle or any other ebook reader.

price fixing

Publishing houses disallows sellers to set their own price on ebooks they sell. Which means there can't be competition between bookshops (e.g. Amazon vs Barnes & Noble) as they all are obliged to use same price. So of course, this is price fixing by publishing houses.

Although of course, pushing customers to .cn or .ru "originated" ebooks is huge own goal but, as RIAA teach us, eventually customers (those few left) pay for it anyway.

There is also the possibility of price fixing in cartels

As when publishers seek not to undercut each others prices in general terms.

So say latest reprint of Clarkson's car-themed pontificating from the Sunday Times comes out in ebook form at much the same price as the cut and paste of James May's motoring-based musings from the Observer.

I don't think you understand

Publishers can charge retailers any stupid price they want, yes, but they don't have a right to tell the retailer how much they should resell it for. At least, that's how it works with real books, I've yet to be convinced there's any reason beyond greed why it should be different with the virtual kind.

Mind Filter

Move along, Destroy All Monsters. There's no liberal-socialist conspiracy here.

did you actually read epaper ?

epaper is not the same thing as paper because format is different, but it's same easy for the eyes. It's nowhere like LCD screen.

It wouldn't be a mobile/PDA/laptop/tablet then, would it?

It's all very well to say 'why doesn't someone make a more functional device with an e-ink' screen, but it misses reality.

e-ink doesn't update quickly and is thus completely unsuitable for most devices. The more it's used, the lower the battery life is - a key point of the Kindle.

It is possible to run apps on the Kindle, but in the US only (unless you jailbreak it). Overuse of apps will - surprise, surprise, lead to lower battery life..

I don't understand how you can describe a Kindle as weighty - it weighs considerably less than a hardback, not that more than a large paperback and vastly less than the dead tree equivalent of the 80 books and PDFs I have on mine.

It isn't perfect, but it is damned good as an e-reader - brilliant screen, can be read one handed squashed up on a train and offers the ability to find books recommended or vaguely remembered by friends there and then. You can't do that with dead tree.