If you don’t have a Kindle…

and you don’t want your books scattered all over several apps… What then?

and you see an ebook on Amazon that you want – what then?

Or you have an iPad, and your desired ebook is not for sale at the iTunes Store? Or you have a Kobo ereader, but the ebook’s not for sale on Borders? Or you have a nook, but Barnes & Noble doesn’t stock it? Or you have a Sony eRreader, but… but… but…

Often you have the option of buying it via an app – Kindle app, KOBO app, Riidr app, Bøger app (Gyldendal m.fl.) etc.

I was searching for a specific book someone mentioned on a sci-fi self publishing forum. Apart from on Amazon (for Kindle) I found the book at Borders.au. The details said “EPUB, desktop, mobile”. Did I know that meant “You can read it on your computer, and nowhere else”?!

I did not. Now I know, and I just spend $7 on this lesson. Provided every one else go by the same dictum and way of describing accessability.

Now, HOW do I aquire ownership? And we are not talking in the “philosopical sense”, here – I did not just buy the right to read it. Or what? How do I get to do what I want with my purchase? How do I get to make doodles in it? Tear out pages? Cut out all instances of “I will”?

First I want it on another medium than my Mac, locked away as it is right now, inside of Adobe ADE (Adobe digital editions, the mothershop of bothersome ebook encryption) :

  • Can I transfer it to my iPad? Possibly.
  • Or to my LBook/Hanlin V3-clone? If its recent firmware supports ADE, then a weak maybe.

iPad apps supporting ADE according to Adobe:

iFlow Reader – FREE
Copia iPad software eBook Reader – Not in App Store
Copia iPad application – Not in App Store
FNAC iPad app – FREE (and in French…)
Numilog Reader- FREE (and in French…)
Biblet for iPad – Not in App Store

The whole purpose of an ebook library is to un-clutter my existance – do away with physical books. Now it looks as if I will end up with various book apps with ONE book in each. That is… SO annoying!

Well, looking at the first app:

iFlow dispenses with the page turning animation to “give you a number of ways to navigate through your book, so you can do it in the manner best suited to you and the material at hand. This approach allows us to take full advantage of the advanced capabilities offered by ebooks versus the less felxible paper books of the past. ” (Basically it means the text is (highly unusually) served as one long text. Maybe not such a bad idea). The app allows highlighting, annotations, bookmarks and facebook or email sharing of excerpts and its annotations (!), dictionary look-ups, history log & browser and the proverbial BookStore.

Adobe FAQ: Transferring items to a supported eReader
Connect the supported eReader device to your computer and launch Digital Editions. Digital Editions automatically detects the presence of your device and offers to authorize it with your Adobe ID.

Nope. Nothing happens. Neither by this method, nor by manual autorization of Mac and iPad. Relaunch. Relaunch. Change position as to which is launched 1st. Nothing. No “extra bookshelf containing your purchase.” Shit.

The other two apps are in French, one of the many languages I still can only guess at. So!

Regarding available app options I am stumped! I will have to read my new book on my computer, inside ADE, ugly typography, can’t change line width, page a glaring white surrounded by black! I am already hating it.

For sure I will never again buy an “EPUB, desktop, Mobile” (ADE)ebook, but go for the SOFT European moded chrypto: watermarked EPUBs and PDF.

Update: I could have used Luzme.com, an ebook search engine, but it only gave me ebookshops with proprietory formats and…

- none available for my country!

Update: Too late I found it on Smashwords, same low price, but in 11 formats for the price of one! But… I guess I was lucky. Compared to Amazon’s hundres of thousands of books, Smashwords only have 30.000 books. …

Smashwords – A Larger Universe – A book by James Gillaspy.

Amazon.com: A Larger Universe eBook: James Gillaspy: Kindle Store.

Buy A Larger Universe EBook by James Gillaspy

Første strandede hval i ebogs-tsunamien.

Hvalen hedder Borders.

Megaboghandlerkæden Borders begyndte som enkelt butik, åbnet i 1971 af to brødre i Ann Arbor, USA.

1992 solgte brødrene til Kmart, der kombinerede Borders 20 mega-boghandlerbutikker (med 10.000’er af titler til salg) med sine egne Waldenbooks-kæde. I 1996 var kæden vokset til 129 megabutikker over hele USA, 1000 boghandlere i indkøbscentre, samt musikkæden, Planet Music, med 6 megastores.

I 2001 overdrog Borders sine uprofitable internetafdeling til… Amazon, men ingen kunne have forudset Amazons indflydelse på det fysiske bogsalg – og da Borders 7 år senere genåbnede sit eget salgs-site, sad Amazon tungt på salget af bøger over nettet, med i millionvis af loyale kunder.

For nyligt lukkede Borders butikker i England, og analyser viser, at salget overgik primært til Amazon.

December 2010 foreslog den største aktiepostejer, William Ackman, at opkøbe Borders største konkurrent, Barnes & Noble, som stabiliserende effekt på Borders aktier, men opkøbet blev ikke til noget.*

Januar 2011 var der totalt 670 butikker tilbage, og 250 stod for snarlig lukning. 1000’vis af arbejdspladser tabt.

I ugen efter mandag 14. februar 2011 står Borders over for konkurs pga. likviditetsvanskeligheder. Analytikere angiver flere årsager***:

– At salget af fysiske bøger er flyttet over på ebøger, med stærkt reduceret salg til følge i de mange butikker.

– At kæden er bebyrdet af (høje) huslejer, i mange tilfælde pga. af optimistisk bundne lejekontrakter på 10-20 år, der gør det umuligt at re-lokere til salgsmæssigt realistiske strøg.**

– At Borders – ulig Barnes & Noble med Nook‘en, først s/h, så i farve – ikke har deres egen ebogslæser, men hægtede sig på KOBOs udmærkede, men nogle simple elæser.

“I think that there will be a 50% reduction in bricks-and-mortar shelf space for books within five years, and 90% within 10 years,” says Mike Shatzkin, chief executive of Idea Logical Co., a New York consulting firm. “Book stores are going away.”

Konsekvenserne af en lukning er svære at forudse – ud over den frygt, det vil afstedkomme i branchen verden over. Men direkte konsekvenser er lukningen af en stor ebogs-boghandel, lukningen af 640 fysiske boghandlere i en tid, hvor en boghandel er blevet et sjældent syn, en diffundering af købere af fysiske bøger til Amazon, og et stort antal ebogskøber til Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Google og mange andre. Om lukningen af Borders river KOBO med i købet er svært at sige, men det vil få en betydning for ebutikken.

Og muligvis sende endnu flere over på ebogsplatformen? Og så falder endnu flere af de gamle forlæggere – og især dem, som ikke har forberedt sig på overgangen til ebøger.

Og hvad med Amazon?

PostDanmarks importrestriktioner på 160 kr. pr. behandlet pakke har foreløbig taget pusten ud af dét sejl for mange. Måske det så bliver plads til nye, store aktører på området, men endnu findes ingen på det europæiske kontinent, som kan gøre for europæerne, hvad Amazon gør for det nordamerikanske kontinent, og for ethver der vil betale importmoms- og afgift for at få tilsendt fysiske bøger.

Kenneth Krabat, 13.2. 2011

7.12.2010 – Borders byder på Barnes & Noble
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704329104576138353865644420.html

31.12.2010 – Border tilbageholder betalinger til forlæggere
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/12/31/borders.delays.book.payments.in.financial.deals/

*** 11.2.2011 – Borders tæt på krak
http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/02/11/borders.near.chapter.11.bankruptcy/

** 11.2.2011 – Hele historien
http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/02/11/borders-nearing-bankruptcy-everything-you-need-to-know/

* 12.2.2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704329104576138353865644420.html