The arrival of the Nook led to Amazon adding PDF support and the announcement of the iPad led to Amazon embracing a 70% cut for authors. Let’s say Apple announce 1.5 million iPads have been sold by the end of its release weekend -
Will Amazon add ePub support? Will it sell ePub books in the Kindle Store? Should it?
Pros and Cons of adding ePub Support to the Kindle
We’ll look at things from Amazon’s perspective and from a strategy perspective – what’s best for profits and for gaining a competitive advantage.
So it’s going to look rather different from the typical ‘do the right thing, support ePub’ argument.
Pros of the Kindle supporting ePub format
- Users with ePub libraries built on the Nook or Sony can migrate over easily.
- The main angle of attack on the Kindle is eliminated. There’ll obviously be other angles used instead (lack of openness of the Kindle Store, lack of advertising in the Kindle App Store). However, they won’t be as effective.
- It removes a major competitive disadvantage – Lots of reviews and comparisons list lack of ePub support as a Kindle negative.
- ePub support would make the Kindle much more ‘open’ and probably lead to more sales.
- Users can use library eBooks (assuming Adobe DRM is supported) and that adds to the Kindle’s value proposition.
- Google free books can be used without needing to be translated.
A lot of it is perception. For most of last year the lack of PDF support was used to attack the Kindle. Now that PDF is supported it’s ePub’s turn to be the weapon of choice. If the Kindle adds ePub support it removes the perception that the Kindle doesn’t let you buy from other stores (it’s a misconception that is surprisingly widespread).
Cons of the Kindle supporting ePub format
There are some very strong negatives for Amazon if they add ePub support to the Kindle -
- You let in all your competitor ebook stores – B&N, Sony, Kobo Books, and Google.
- You let in free library books and free Google Books and that will probably have an adverse impact on sales of paid books.
- Depending on how easy Amazon make loading ePub books and how good the ePub reader is it’s a threat to the Kindle format. It’s also dangerous as another store could supplant the Kindle Store as the ebook store of choice. The Kindle device would be turned into a dumb terminal i.e. all it does is read books bought from somewhere else.
- You confuse readers as they have to choose between ePub and Kindle format.
- You let users build their libraries in ePub and reduce lock-in.
- You degrade the user experience plus you take the hit if other stores sell poor quality ePub documents – Users will mostly contact Amazon about ebook problems.
- You have to pull in data from different stores’ eBooks on whether text to speech is allowed, how many devices the book can be enabled for, and so forth.
- The chances of copyright infringment and piracy increase a lot since most outside stores aren’t under your control.
- You strengthen Adobe and have to pay Adobe for licensing its DRM (which most ePub stores use). We are assuming that ePub support means supporting Adobe DRMd ePub books.
The downside for Amazon is very high – We’re talking about the complete elimination of the eBooks revenue stream. We’re also talking about the reduction of lock-in into the Kindle ecosystem and to the Kindle. Not only would ePub support endanger Amazon’s eBooks revenue it would also make it easy for people to switch from the Kindle to another eReader or device.
That’s two huge negatives and the positives don’t really compare. Amazon are unlikely to add ePub support to the Kindle unless they really fall behind.
What does ‘really fall behind’ mean?
- 5 million iPads are sold this year and people start reading on them instead of on the Kindle.
- the other possibility is a new eReader jumps in and wins 5 million readers’ hearts and wallets.
If Amazon see their #1 spot under severe threat then, and only then, will they add ePub support.
Pros and Cons of adding ePub support to the Kindle Store
This is an even fuller adoption of ePub i.e. not only does the Kindle support ePub, the Kindle Store sells in ePub and all past purchases are available in ePub format.
Pros of the Kindle Store selling books in ePub format
- We get one format which really reduces complexity and helps eBook growth.
- Kindle Store can sell ebooks to all eReaders. Of course, thanks to the agency model and its fixed prices, the benefits to Amazon of being able to sell eBooks for other eReaders would be limited.
- Users get more choice and flexibility. They also get to take their library to any new device.
- The Kindle Store is ‘open’ – which kills a lot of criticism.
- People who are scared of getting locked in to the Kindle Store are no longer scared and it increases Kindle sales.
These are significant benefits but for the most part not to Amazon.
Cons of the Kindle Store selling books in ePub format
- The biggest con is that there is no longer any lock-in. Users can leave anytime.
- Another negative is that it breaks the eco-system. Suddenly Kindle Store books can be read anywhere. There is no incentive to buy the Kindle for cheap Kindle Store prices. You might as well buy a Nook or Sony and then get ebooks from the Kindle Store.
- Amazon will have to support two formats which introduces a non-trivial amount of complexity.
- The availability of two formats will confuse users. A lot of users don’t understand formats and it’d be painful for them to figure out the difference.
- It weakens Kindle’s own format. Users will tend to pick the format they can take with them and eventually it’ll kill Amazon’s format.
It’s worth pointing out that the benefits to Amazon of selling books in ePub are rather limited and the negatives are very extensive. The benefits mostly go to competitors and users.
There isn’t a lot of upside for Amazon
If you think of it from a ‘company trying to maximize profits’ perspective - being ’open’ and using ePub doesn’t really benefit Amazon. Basically, it’s not a win-win situation – Amazon loses and competitors and users win.
At the moment -
- Amazon have the largest market share amongst eReaders (probably).
- Amazon have the largest share of eBook sales (supposedly 90%).
- Amazon have a lot of customers of good intent.
- Amazon have book lovers as opposed to ’also like to read’ people.
- Most Amazon customers are locked in because of their purchases of books in Kindle format.
It doesn’t make much sense for Amazon to throw all of this away.
There’s no market in which the leader (or the one with the most profitable customers) pushes for an open system. It’s always the 3rd and 4th companies and the stragglers. The stragglers try to trick the leader into believing ‘being open’ will somehow help the leader or they try to play the ‘it’s not fair’ card.
Market leaders like Apple, Microsoft, and Apple are reluctant to open up their systems because they see through the subterfuge.
The only thing that could force Amazon to start supporting ePub on the Kindle is the threat of losing their #1 spot. Even then they would be reluctant to add ePub to the Kindle Store – it makes it too easy for customers to leave. Unless Kindle’s share of the market falls to 25% it doesn’t make sense for Amazon to sell books in ePub format.
Filed under: kindle Tagged: | lack thereof, the case for ePub
I agree that there aren’t many benefits to Amazon, but I don’t think native EPUB support would make any real difference in terms of piracy. The fact that the Kindle supports any formats at all beyond its own means on-PC conversion can put most any kind of text document into a Kindle-friendly format with ease.
What about the customers who bought a Kindle DX and are upset because of the limited pdf support offered by the device ?
Amazon should improve the poor pdf options offered by the Kindle DX.
If they are going to support a book format, at least they should do it right from the beginning.
Agreed on that – PDF support needs to be improved.
I don’t see why the Kindle can”t support the free or low-cost non-DRM epubs from other places. Amazon doesn’t have to sell or give them away themsleves — they have no responsibility if they don’t — but it allows us to find a good epub book and just transfer it to the Kindle to be read.
DRM’d ePub compatability? Almost no one has it. Nooks can read Son’ys, but Sonys can’t Read the Nook’s.. Library access is attractive but the main prob these days is no support for non-DRM’d books in ePub format
Perception is really everything. When column after column points out that the Kindle “can’t” or “won’t” read what has become the standard format on just about every other e-reader for non-DRM’d books, I think that hurts the Kindle.
While the most important thing, for growth, is support for editing of PDFs, this bit about not being able to handle non-DRM’d ePub files from the countless sources out there is a problem.
Apple, while proclaiming the ‘open’ feature of ePub that it will use, adds a proprietary DRM process to it. Other readers won’t be reading iPad files nor will the iPad read others’ DRM’d books since they don’t cooperate with Adobe.
So, that’s less of an issue than the ones without DRM issues.
It’s true that there are some downsides for Amazon, but I for one will not buy a Kindle or eBooks from Amazon because I don’t want to lock myself into their proprietary format.
I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks this way, so how’s that for a downside? Sooner or later, they’ll realize that they’re better off switching to ePUB
They’ve been very successful competing with everyone else in the printed books space. I’ve been buying books (and other things) from them for many years. I don’t see why they’re suddenly afraid of competition…
I think it would be a good move for Amazon. Epub will become an open standard and ‘closed’ systems will eventually pay the price. This has happened in the computer world over many years.
I, for one, would still stick with Amazon in majority (as I do now). There service is excellent and has been for years even prior to e books. I am only a recent Kindle user but impressed. At the moment I visit many sites for e books but have purchased the majority from Amazon.
Go to include Epub (non-DRM and DRM). It is going to be the future.
I would continue buying books from amazon – for the convenience of having the books delivered to my kindle via whispernet. I’ve also been dazzled by Amazon customer service, especially concerning the e-books.
Honestly, what it comes down to for me is customer service. With amazon, I’ve felt like I’ve been treated like a person, instead of a number (although I know on some level I am; they are in the business of making money after all) and so I’ll continue with them.
I haven’t seriously considered another ereader in a while, if only because of that.
How does this concern letting in e-pub? I guess I’m just saying that it’s not the only consideration I make when I’m buying a book. If they went the e-pub route, it’s doubtful that I’d buy anywhere else, and if I did, it wouldn’t be for a while. I’d wait a couple months, at minimum, and scope out the complaints/praise for the customer service of other publishers.
Plus, I need to point out once again, that I can be lazy sometimes. If I don’t have to hook up my kindle to my computer, and click and drag, I won’t. If the other publishers couldn’t, or wouldn’t, send directly to my kindle, it would be a deterrent, regardless of a minor price difference.
I’m a Stanza fan. So I would buy a LOT more books from amazon if they went to epub.
One thing that have always nagged me is this: what actual, intrinsic advantage the ePub format has over the others?
“It’s open” isn’t an intrinsic advantage because it’s about external considerations (whether you’re likely to keep that copy of the book or not in the future, and so on). I mean things like the Kindle format featuring text re-flow while PDF doesn’t, and so on.
‘Cause so far I haven’t seen a single article mentioning the intrinsic advantages of ePub. And this is important – I’d say it’s even crucial. People often refer to ePub as if it should become what MP3 is for music, but MP3 didn’t become a (real) standard just because it’s open. It got there because it was intrinsically preferable to all the other proprietary formats out there at the time (it was smaller, retained most of the audio quality, featured tags and so on).
Does ePub really compare, or is it more like .RTF – which is nice to have as an universal format all word processors can read but never came close to surpass .DOC for a number of reasons, even if .DOC is a proprietary format?
In other words, what really prevents the Kindle format from becoming a de facto universal format for ebooks such as what happened to .DOC and documents? Most major ebook stores also deliver books in Kindle format already. Some libraries are liable to do it. Newspapers do it. Public domain repositories do it.
Unless someone finally presents some concrete, unique functionality to ePub that other formats can’t reproduce, there’s no point in supporting it. It’s just wishful thinking. People doesn’t adopt things because they’re “open”, people adopt things because they’re convenient. The Kindle format is very convenient for the kindle device. No need to spend a second or a penny working on something else when it could be used to improve the device even more.
It’s not about a format being better. It’s about anyone being able to implement it from open specifications, and not be behind massive licence fees and locked away as a ghastly proprietary format that will one day die.
The successful formats are those that can trivially be implemented anywhere, on any device, regardless of OS. Vendors fighting from control of a single “ours is best format” is clearly not in the interest of consumers.
There are over two million free books in epub and pdf *now*. Kindle not supporting the most common formats says Amazon is only interested in their reader as a sales portal. That will not work, and certainly not get them into Apple’s ipod domination, despite Amazon their reader given permanent placement on their homepage.
The Nook is tearing up Amazon sales, not because it’s a better device, but because B&N knew many people are not interested in being locked into a single vendor.
I looked at the Kindle for a long time. By the time I was ready to buy the Nook had come along. i chose the Nook. A huge feature for me was the ability to download books from the local library.
I agree with a number of these posts. I am a solid Amazon fan and recent Kindle owner. Think it is great. I do wish that Kindle would take on Epub (DRM or non-DRM). I know our local library books are generally in Epub. Not that this really should be a major consideration to Amazon/Kindle whose business is to sell books.
However I consider that Epub will become a ‘standard’ and from many years computer experience proprietary ‘software’ generally loses in the end (or makes sure it becomes the ‘standard’.
I see the point the author of this article is trying to make. I currently switched from PCs to Macs because of my iPhone. I enjoy the simplicity and streamlined synchronization of all products. I first had the Stanza app but was nerd-level excited when the Kindle app became available for my iPhone. Once the update was available for highlighting and note-taking, I couldn’t have been happier having been a long time amazon user. However, I was disappointed with the inability to do the same highlighting and note-taking on the Mac version of Kindle for Mac. If Amazon can bring these features to the Kindle for Mac and allow me to synchronize between all my devices, ePub or not I will be a loyal customer.
[...] read PDF and ePub files (thousands are available for free) in their native format without having to convert it. Of course, there’s also the iPad, which I desperately want, but decided to hold out for [...]
The ONLY thing that stops me from buying a Kindle is lack of ePub support. Frankly, it sucks. If I cannot read my local library’s eBooks on it, Kindle is severely deficient.
The claim that “1) The biggest con is that there is no longer any lock-in. Users can leave anytime” just makes me want to buy something else. I do not want to be locked in!
Dear Amazon, my credit card waits for you to get a clue, but I won’t wait that long. . .
I will not buy a Kindle (even at the attractive $139 price point) unless it supports the eBook library I’ve already built for my Sony device. Period.
I used to buy ALL my (printed) books from Amazon.com. Now that I buy eBooks, I can no longer buy from them as they don’t offer ePub.
Because of this, they lost a long-time customer against his desires, simply because they don’t offer what I want. That’s the quickest way to lose business and make yourself irrelevant.
All of the same “con” arguments could have been (and likely were) used to justify Apple sticking with DRMed music files. It’s been a couple years since they switched to non-DRMed files (ACC is an open standard, just like MP3) they’re still the top dog.
Switching to a non-protected format didn’t hurt Apple then, is there any specific reason it would hurt Amazon now?
The music industry is dying. That’s the big difference.
It’s inevitable in books too – However, Amazon can delay it by keeping control and not letting piracy become rampant.
I disagree that the music industry dying.
Well,yes the traditional music publishing “industry” has died since it fell asleep and got ran over by technology. The music industry has transformed and been replaced by direct sales channels.
Adapt or die.
Some music publishers and producers let greed over ride their common sense and was scared of change. All I have to say is good riddance to those who fell as new business models and companies developed. It does my heart good to see a free market society in action as long as the government keeps their hand out of the arena. Darn lobbyists.
Radio is controlled by these same archaic business models so that is why new artists are not getting played and most radio is going to talk radio. Radio has been displaced by the internet.
Smart stations and owners embraced the technology and continue on.
Music is alive and well. Digital vehicles such as youtube, myspace, facebook, itunes, etc is the new medium where artists have a voice through direct sales. Let’s not forget merchandising.
Traditionally, music artists have not made much on record sales and relied heavily on touring. Many artists were controlled by the “industry” and were happy when they could get out of their contracts as well as releasing their music on their own. Now they can have it both ways as the middleman publishers have mostly been cut out.
Artists out from under “the man” can now directly collect their royalties without having 20 middlemen sucking off of them.
This transformation was good for artists and consumers in the music industry. There are more bands and more music being released than ever over the entire globe. Consumers now know there is actually more than just a handful of bands and Led Zeppelin is not the center of the Universe.
Regarding piracy, it worked well for the Grateful Dead and like bands. A good way for new bands to get the word out. I remember giving away my cassettes and CD’s at shows. Now it’s online to a world audience.
The transformation continues with the ebook “industry” and I see B&N positioning themselves to be the next itunes of ebooks.
It remains to be seen who will prevail and how the model will be shaped. All need to kick adobe to the curb. There is plenty of open source coding and techniques available to counter piracy of ebooks. Why pay a licensing fee to adobe?
Amazon will lose if it continues sucking up to archaic publishing houses and people like adobe.
I know blog writers that make millions a year off of advertising and selling their products – so there is hope for writers. They will just have to adapt as will Amazon and B&N and others.
I think the issues of not supporting ePub are clear and I disagree with the review given by this site. I believe there are several more advantages to Amazon supporting the ePub standard, some of which being quite substantial. As others have mentioned, regardless of format, most would still purchase their eBooks from Amazon. Revisiting iTunes as an example, iPods make use of the MP3 format. This has become a standard in the music industry and plenty of companies offer electronic album/music sales in MP3 format. MP3 files can be uploaded to an iPod from any source, however the majority of customers still purchase their music from iTunes. Why, because it’s convenient and they have established themselves in the market as being the leaders. Sure you might be able to get the same music for cheaper from elsewhere, but no one cares! Just as there are other MP3 players out there, iPods are probably the most expensive choice, and yet the most successful.
Taking the approach that supporting universal formats will cause all your captive customers to churn is a cowardly way to do business, and more damaging to the company than opening things up could ever be. If a company believes that their only chance to keep their market share it is to keep their customers captive, then they must also believe that the competitors are actually providing a better service, as otherwise what is there to worry about? The Kindle could be the eBook version of the iPod, but Amazon, you’re holding it back, and your holding the industry back. Sort yourselves out and start respecting your customers and your industry, and you WILL reap the rewards in the long run!
The death of traditional publishing houses is what this all boils down to.
Publishers of course would love to keep the proprietary Kindle format and the distribution/sales channels closed. This keeps writers tied down.
This is why there are back room deals made with Amazon as the publishing houses hopeing the Kindle could keep the consumer coming back for more.
Amazon backed themselves into a corner with traditional publishers and the Kindle format..
It is still a brave new world with ebooks.
Traditional publishing firms do not want writers to have control and sell to consumers directly or sell through distribution channels directly. The Amazon model.
I think B&N is smart for moving to an open format. I also think they watched the music industry go through the same transformation
Just like itunes – B&N itself can eventually be a sales conduit for writers and eventually bypass publishing houses. Check mate.
Look at Lulu. Same principle.
There is really no need for a traditional publisher in this digital world.
Good luck Amazon, don’t box yourself into bed with archaic publishers who are holding on for dear life to an old business model that will fail. I know your company is smarter than this.
A point the author misses is that an open format will be better for consumers. There will be true price competition with regards to ebook sales. The market then dictates price instead of publishers.
By the way, I purchased a non-proprietary e-reader. I see the writing on the wall.
I too, am another person who doesn’t want to be locked in. I’ve been going back and forth between Nook and Kindle and think I like the kindle better in almost every way possible. However, I’ll likely end up with the nook because I can get books from my local public library.
When I looked at Kindle for my daughter, the fact that she would have to buy books she currently reads for free from the library was a deal killer. At the time the Amazon people told me they were opening up in resonse to Sony and others. But they still dont work with the EPUB format that seems the library standard today.
If the only reason for this is not technical, but the desire to prevent a consumer from makeing their own choices about which books to buy, then I dont see why I would want the device. Why would I want a corporation to basically have control over the books I read?
well i just brought the kindle 2 days ago and i am returning it do the fact it doesnt support epub and that is my fault i didnt go into buying my first rearder very informed i had no ideal that i wouldnt be able to read the books that i buy from harlequin. i do not want to buy individual books. i guess i should have researched first.
Well, you can buy Harlequin books through the Kindle Store. If epub support is necessary hold off for a while and see if B&N releases a new Nook 2.
Hypothetically, if Amazon decided to provide epub format(s), would it be a software upgrade or would one have to purchase a newer Kindle with this software?
Probably a software upgrade on the latest Kindle. That seems to be the way it’s going. So if you got a Kindle 3 and Amazon added ePub support before it released Kindle 4 you’d get it for free. However, if it added it afterwards then it would expect you to upgrade to the latest Kindle to get the feature. At least that’s what I think.
I’m italian. Amazon doesn’t provide so many books in italian as german as franch.All the editors in these languages are selling ebooks with epubs. I would like to buy a kindle but i would like also to read in my own language and not only english. That’s way amazon will fail
I have a Kindle, and I like it, but I worry about Amazon getting too powerful. If I have a Mac, I can’t run Windows applications, and vice versa. But an ebook isn’t like that, it’s more like a word processor file, which can be opened on any system. If I have a Nook, I should be able to open my books on a Kindle, and vice versa. I should be able to read library books.
I am on the brink of buying an ereader. I have been in doubt for several weeks now. Most books in my language and its neighboring countries are published in epub. If the Kindle had supported epub I would have bought the Kindle 3G without even thinking twice. It features everything I want, except for those ridiculous format restrictions.
But as it is now I am leaning more and more towards acquiring the Bebook Neo that costs about 100 euro more than the Kindle 3G. Bebook is expanding it’s compatible formats with every firmware release and it even supports comic formats now. But still I would prefer the Kindle 3G if it only supported epub. I am sure that I am not the only one that decides against buying Kindle because of its close minded format restrictions.
I love the Kindle due to the fact that it is about reading and there are no other bells and whistles to distract me from just that, my reading. Unfortunately Amazon is going to crash and burn if they don’t allow users to access epub formats and fix their relationship with Publishers of periodicals.
Amazon does not do quality assurance on there books before they deliver them. They rely on the publisher to format the books I have found that tables and charts in both periodicals and books often screw up the formatting and are unreadable. I do not find this in epub versions of the same books on another reader based on kobo that does epub.
The library issue is going to become huge and it is unfortunate that I can’t get them on my kindle.
Finally the periodical issue is incredulous. Twice I have had to send my Kindle back and both times I lost the magazines I had been saving and they don’t allow you to get them back. I consider the New Yorker very similar to a book and the fact that they don’t let me access what I have purchased and read as I desire unacceptable.
Finally not being able to share your books with another Kindle user in your household unless you are on the same account is ridiculous. They should allow you to authorize other devices but not require you to purchase everything under the same account.
I do love my Kindle and Amazon’s ability to get a person on the phone to talk to you. I just don’t think they are listening to their customers.
Bruce, Amazon has added a lot of things over the last few years – PDF support, faster page turns, an app store, lending.
I think the problem with ePub is that it’s a very dangerous thing in that it creates the opportunity for competitors like Google to turn Kindles into dumb terminals.
Amazon can’t really do anything for formatting – other than perhaps add a separate rating for ebook formatting quality.
Library book support – yes, that’s something it has to fix.
Magazine issue – another must-fix.
Having to have Kindles on one account. People are already abusing the family sharing feature. If it’s expanded we’ll end up with 50 people sharing an ebook.
switch11,
I appreciate that Amazon has to worry about the epub issue as a company. As a consumer it isn’t really my concern. I want to be able to do what I want with what I purchase similar to what I can do with a book or a magazine. They were pretty much the first one’s in the ereader space so I expect them to lead and not follow. You noted they have added many things over the years, while that is true, I don’t believe we are in a space where these things can take years.
I do believe Amazon can do something about ensuring publishers such as Time have proper formatting for tables and charts or at least let their readers know that there are issues with it. As well as Best Selling publications that rely on data as part of the book. It shouldn’t be up to me to purchase the book get 1/2 way through it and then find out that I can’t make heads or tails of the text. These graphics look and work fine on other ereaders.
I am unaware of a family sharing feature other than deregistering your kindle and reregistering as your family member which ultimately isn’t worth the effort. If you know of some other way other than the one time lending feature please advise.
I would just like something similar to Itunes where I am allowed to authorize devices of my choosing up to a limit. I want to share books I buy with my girlfriend who lives with me just like I want to share my music.
In some ways I would like the Kindle to be a dumb terminal for my reading where I can carry this small device with me that is specifically for reading. It is nice to be able to download white papers and my own scanned pdf’s and carry them with me. Unfortunately there is still along way to go with scanned PDF’s on a device that doesn’t have a touch screen for sizing.
I think Amazon will eventually have to address these issues if they are to stay in the game.
Bruce, if you step back and think about it.
Can you get cheaper books and more convenience and also all the same benefits?
It might seem perfectly reasonable to you. However, it’s not a win-win situation. If readers want cheaper prices and more features then they have to be willing to give up on some features.
Family sharing is if you have multiple Kindles or multiple apps on various devices. You can register them all to one account and then up to 6 devices can read one book at a time.
So if you and your wife and her sister all had Kindles (or Kindle for Android or another Kindle reading app) then you could all register to one account and read the book at the same time – and would only have to buy it twice. What you’re talking about is possible – You just have to register your girlfriend’s Kindle or device to your amazon account. There’s a page called ‘Manage My Kindle’ which is available via a link on every Kindle Store page at Amazon where you can add devices.
No one will build a dumb terminal because there’s no way to lock in profits from book sales.
No, Amazon won’t. They already dominate the game. They just have to keep improving – they don’t ever have to add ePub or start giving readers ways to read books without buying them.
Unfortunately the account management concept is a good idea if you start from the beginning with a shared account and set it up so you can charge separately. As far as I am aware once you purchase a book and it is associated with an account all bets are off on bringing it over to a new account.
As to the other stuff. I guess we’ll just have to disagree.
Cheers
Yes, let’s agree to disagree.
You can share one account amongst various devices.
You can’t share one book amongst various accounts.
Does the HUGE vulnerability in the latter option not strike you? Within days there would be people sharing a book amongst 100 accounts. Then instead of millions of books being sold per day it would be thousands – each of which would be shared by thousands of people.
IF ENGLISH IS NOT YOUR ONLY LANGUAGE, YOU MUST GET A DEVICE THAT SUPPORT EPUB.
I’m Brazillian. In the begging of last year, I bought a kindle because i read technical books in English, and it is easer to get them from kindle store than imported. Now, I also read english story book when they are cheaper than the translated version.
In the end of last year, the book store from Brazil have decided to start selling ebooks. They have all going to DRM protect ePub.
NOW, I REGREAT A LOT TO HAVE BOUGHT A KINDLE. If i had a device that support ePub, i would be able to buy books in English and Portuguese.
All Brazillian costumers will get devices that support ePub, and this will happen in others countries too, as soon as, their book stores start selling ebooks. Amazon will lose many of their international clients if they don’t start to support ePub.
I think all this thing about epub support from kindle is useless. Mobi and epub are quite similar formats, and calibre ( free and open source) can convert between them without losing anithing in terms of quality and formattation. Jesus, same is for the old .lit files!!!! Perfect conversion!!!! What’s the problem in hitting 1 button? PDF sucks, because it has almost no formattinginformation stored, that’s why converting is a shit if the file is not text only.
Let’s consider one thing, i live in italy andi bought aki dle because i paid it half of the other ebook reader, more or less 150 euros less, andwith more quality. Kindleis simply the best. I don’t complain if i have to click a button to convert epubs, cause only now the nook reached the same price of the kindle ( but with no international warranty and less features). Kindle is one year that offers 139 dollars device. And use it converting epubs is so easy that after seeing it, my bro bought a kindle dx, and my mom wanted hisown kindle too!!!
Nothing to complain really, i only hope that any choice smazon will do ( epub or not ) will stilloffer super devices at extra reasonable price.
Ah, for the peaple speaking about public libraries….. Librarians in italy can hardly use e-mails, ebook are usualy considered black magic stuff. In italy there is also a strong resistence of the big editors, against ebook… That’s why i don’t really need an epub capable device. But even if i did, kindle users have the ” duokan ” card to play