Comments on: Barnes & Noble’s eBookstore Is Neither Sound Nor Fury

By: Stumbling Over Chaos :: Of book linkin’ and kitty prisons

Stumbling Over Chaos :: Of book linkin’ and kitty prisons — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:19:02 +0000

[...] Tele-Read provides some great thinking points about ebooks, reading, and ownership, as does Dear Author. Barnes & Noble’s new ebookstore (complete with their own DRM) gets some thoughtful criticism. [...]

By: An eBook Neophyte Takes the Plunge with Barnes & Nobleâ€™s new Application « Austenprose

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 06:35:25 +0000

[...] week after the announcement from B&N, many bloggers were chatting about it. The gals at Dear Author were disappointed saying it is not what they were hoping for and brings nothing new to the game. [...]

By: Terry Odell

Terry Odell — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:53:32 +0000

My fictionwise short stories with a primarily e-publisher are now on the B&N e-book site. My contact at the publisher said it’s still a work in progress. They don’t have the right covers, and the buy information says “can’t ship outside the US” … um… these are downloads.

I like the idea that short stories are now available there.

By: ardeatine

ardeatine — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:42:34 +0000

Won’t their recent purchase of Fictionwise soak up some of these shortcomings? I’m wondering if we can expect a rebranding of Fictionwise at some time. Changes there are already afoot, more categories for erotica, the disappearance of the publisher real-time sales control panel to name two. I was kind of surprised to see B and N opening an ebook store after spending so much money on Fictionwise.

By: Otis-Anne

Otis-Anne — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 17:43:35 +0000

My favorite part? The only way to pay for Ebooks appears to be with a credit card. No PayPal, no B&N gift-card (which can be used to purchase print books online, and that’s great ’cause I know that *I* always enjoy my gift more when a chunk of it can go towards shipping). So, again, B&N gift cards can be used online at bn.com, but *not* to purchase ebooks from B&N. Credit card only. What a good idea. Because, in this economy I think we are all trying to use our credit cards as much as possible, and *everything* is more fun if you can add fees and interest.
My PayPal and I will be shopping elsewhere.

By: Terry Odell

Terry Odell — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:01:16 +0000

As someone with a few romance stories from a digital publisher, I’m just glad there’s now one more distribution point.

By: Erin

Erin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 00:10:11 +0000

I wrote B&N a few months ago, saying a lot what you do – how stupid is it to not make their ebooks available for the ebook readers people already have? It’s just like, blam! I’m not their customer because I have a Kindle. And I would have LOVED to be their customer, because Amazon’s such a big bully that I avoid buying from them. But it looks like everyone’s going to be a bully, sigh. Oh well, in another couple years they’ll have figured it out, or else be bankrupt, I guess.

By: Yes, Virginia, the Barnes & Noble ebookstore is a Good Thing | Gravitational Pull

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 23:41:52 +0000

[...] “Jane” at the DearAuthor blog complains that B&N’s effort lacks a dedicated hardware reader (at least until the Plastic Logic reader arrives next year), includes far fewer books people actually want to read and is using a proprietary format that excludes existing Kindle owners. Kassia Krozser, on her Booksquare blog, makes of some of the same points, concluding: It's great that Barnes & Noble is offering its customers an ebook option. But to pretend they're creating serious competition to the Kindle ecosystem is madness. Let's talk when they have a device and experience that makes the buying and reading of ebooks the best experience technologically possible. [...]

By: Jane O

Jane O — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:24:59 +0000

I know many of you are very fond of e-readers and e-books, but…

Practically everyone I know is a reader, and the book-a-week variety, not the book-a-year variety, reading every kind of book from trashy to scholarly and abstruse. Of them all, only one owns a e-reader, and she’s rich. No one else has the slightest interest in paying $200-$300 for a device that was never needed before. And you still need your eyes.

I would like to suggest a different model for e-publishing:

1. Give the e-readers away. Free.

2. All e-books should be readable on all devices.

3. Publishers could rent out their books cheaply, say $1 to $2 for a week. I assume that if Amazon can yank back 1984, it wouldn’t be difficult to yank back a book after a week. If I like the book, and want to keep it, I can buy either the e-version or the paper version, same price either way. Paper could be print-on-demand.

There must be a serious flaw in here, and I’m not sure its in the finances I suspect it would be a lot easier to get five people to shell out $2 apiece to rent a book than it is to sell a $10 e-book to a very narrow segment of the reading public.

By: Mireya

Mireya — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:28:09 +0000

This is DoA to me.

By: Why The B&N Store Isn’t Competition for Amazon | Booksquare

Why The B&N Store Isn’t Competition for Amazon | Booksquare — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 19:26:42 +0000

[...] of the Kindle ecosystem. It’s not competition for Amazon or the Kindle in any meaningful way. Jane Litte notes, and I agree, that the Barnes & Noble store won’t entice customers from Amazon. [...]

By: Gina

Gina — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:31:22 +0000

I have a My B&N account where I keep my library and saw big banners for this a few weeks ago, only when I clicked on them nothing was there. Today after reading your post I looked again and sure enough there it is.

As I buy 99% romance and 1% technology books, I was surprised that my recommended EBooks included three books from their Classics series AND a Pocket Dictionary.

Huh…

By: DS

DS — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:10:35 +0000

I love gadgets. I have several ipods, an iphone, two media servers, a dual television tuner that lets me capture cable video and a bunch of stuff I rarely touch like a Nokia touchscreen table and a Wince Tablet I started reading ebooks on a couple of years ago.

But I only read ebooks now on my Kindles and my iphone. The reason is not any type of loyalty to Amazon and Apple (not even a Seasame Street fascination with the letter A). I buy new tech simply because it has better or different features. There was a great gadget called a Take TV that is no longer being made that I bought and gave to a couple of people as Christmas presents I thought it was so great, so it’s not even a case of something being new. When someone comes out with an ereader that has new or better features or is maybe eve more stylish, I’ll probably buy that too. But I haven’t been tempted to put my Kindles (or iphone) down by anything else I have seen– and I look a lot.

B&N would have to offer something I’m not getting from Amazon to get me to move off my current position. I don’t see that they are doing it right now– and not some complicated rebate program either.

By: Kalen Hughes

Kalen Hughes — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:03:37 +0000

They aren't in the business to provide readers with books, they are in the business to make money. Of course, they'd probably make more money if they figured out how to make books available to readers with the least possible hassle . . . but it doesn't look like retailers have made that mad leap yet.

This is the thing I don’t get with Amazon. They could capture MORE readers if they’d sell in Kindle and Mobipocket format (I know I’d buy from them like mad). It just irks me when I can’t get a book I want (or when I have to pay more for it . . . like the newest Sabrina Jeffries book: It’s like $4 cheaper at Fictionwise than it is at the Mobipocket store, but for some reason Fictionwise only has the eReader version for sale!).

By: Heather

Heather — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:50:20 +0000

I will go digital when I can buy what I want when I want it and read it on whatever device I choose. I am terrified to invest in a reader then find out I cannot purchase the books I want. I am all for going digital since it will save paper and save space in my home.

By: Laurel Ann

Laurel Ann — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:49:58 +0000

@Jennifer: They aren't in the business to provide readers with books, they are in the business to make money. Barnes & Noble is a book retailer, not a library. They provide readers with books. That is how they make their money. They need to make money to stay in business and sell more book. This is a basic law of economics. So, this new eBook store is not all that it should be. 2010 is five months away. B&N is the world's biggest book retailer with great resouces. They will lick their wounds and come back fightin.

By: Leah Braemel

Leah Braemel — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 16:04:40 +0000

Price is an issue. I just bought Acheron by Sherrilyn Kenyon in hardcover for $9 at my local Chapters store up here in Canada. They want $19 for the eversion compared to $12 at the Sony store. Not that I could buy it from B&N if I wanted to pay that much because the B&N ebooks aren’t available for download outside of the US. So that’s a major fail for me. Especially since I’m a Sony Reader owner.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 15:19:36 +0000

ENOUGH ALREADY! What part of â€œreaders just want to readâ€ is so hard to understand?

The part where the bookstore doesn’t come to dominate the competition. They aren’t in the business to provide readers with books, they are in the business to make money. Of course, they’d probably make more money if they figured out how to make books available to readers with the least possible hassle . . . but it doesn’t look like retailers have made that mad leap yet.

By: Kalen Hughes

Kalen Hughes — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:26:29 +0000

Fifth, BN promises multiformats but will be wrapping those formats in it's own DRM. BN promises that its books WON'T be compatible with the Sony Reader or the Kindle. Just what we readers need and want.

I’m so freaken sick of proprietary DRM. *sigh* I have a CyBook, and it works with a whole slew of formats, but I can’t buy from Amazon (even though they own MobiPocket and I can use that format) and Fictionwise frequently has books up only in eReader, which sucks out loud (I have to strip the DRM and convert the book, which screws up the formatting).

ENOUGH ALREADY! What part of â€œreaders just want to readâ€ is so hard to understand?

By: MarnieColette

MarnieColette — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 14:21:32 +0000

I test drove their reader on my blackberry — didn’t function well. I am also not happy with the fact that I won’t be able to use it on my sony reader. Can’t they figure out an easy system for us so that we can you use what we want to reader the book we paid for?