Apple Raising iBookstore Visibility by Exhibiting at BookExpo America for First Time

[skellener]

Just curious, does Apple allow you to archive iBooks? I know that is the case with Amazon Kindle books and Audible (Amazon) audio books. You can ditch the version you have off your device and always retrieve it again later if you like. A digital locker for all your content - if you like. Does iBooks allow this? Or is it, one download and you better back it up? I haven't purchased any iBooks so I don't know how it works.

I wonder if we'll see Apple move towards the digital locker for everything with Lion and a revamped MobileMe/iCloud?

 

[Daveoc64]

I've seen this comment so many times its laughable.

Apple DO NOT set the price of the books, the Publishers do - and the price the publisher sets is the price it sells for, not a penny more. Amazon DO NOT set the price of the books, the Publishers do. Amazon DO sometimes (but not always), add fees for things like "whispernet delivery". Stop blaming Apple or Amazon or anyone else and look to the publishers. They, and ONLY they, set the price.

Apple forces publishers to use the agency model (where Publishers control the price of books).

Amazon has been very vocal in opposing the agency model, and here in the UK and EU it's under investigation as being anti-competitive.

Due to its questionable legal status, and some publishers not liking the model overall, not ALL publishers use it (those that don't use it aren't allowed on the iBookstore)

For those publishers that do not use the model, Amazon's pricing is generally much lower than its competitors.

To say that Apple doesn't set the price is true, but it's not really showing the whole picture - it was their idea to let publishers set the price in the first place.

Amazon DO sometimes (but not always), add fees for things like "whispernet delivery".

Amazon never adds fees for delivery.

 

[Blackmist]

What I hate about iBooks is the fact that it's not available in most of the world. Yes I can read some of the books from Project Guntenberg but what if I want to purchase a book?

Also as others have pointed out is the fact that there's no iBooks for Mac OS X. I hope they add one or at least let us preview with Preview.app

 

[ksgant]

I never use iBooks. For one thing, you can't customize it to be white type on a black background like I can with the Kindle app. Much easier to read at night in bed with the lights off. Just dim it down to almost nothing.

They also need to get away from the "oh look, see, it's like a real book with page turns and everything, see, it's just like a real book". Stop trying to virtually mimic a physical thing and just give us the strengths of an ebook and all that goes with it.

I mean, why not just simulate an entire 3D room that's a library. Have a chair, a lamp in the 3D room and a bookshelf. You walk, First Person Shooter style, up to the bookshelf, reach out and pull down a book, then walk over to the chair and sit down and you open the book with your virtual hands and read.

Or even better, in the 3D room have a virtual model of a Kindle that you read your book through. Hmm...

 

[CQd44]

i never use ibooks. For one thing, you can't customize it to be white type on a black background like i can with the kindle app. Much easier to read at night in bed with the lights off. Just dim it down to almost nothing.

They also need to get away from the "oh look, see, it's like a real book with page turns and everything, see, it's just like a real book". Stop trying to virtually mimic a physical thing and just give us the strengths of an ebook and all that goes with it.

I mean, why not just simulate an entire 3d room that's a library. Have a chair, a lamp in the 3d room and a bookshelf. You walk, first person shooter style, up to the bookshelf, reach out and pull down a book, then walk over to the chair and sit down and you open the book with your virtual hands and read.

Or even better, in the 3d room have a virtual model of a kindle that you read your book through. Hmm...

fund it

 

[roadbloc]

The iBookstore will hardly be used as long as it is limited just to the iDevices. There is a reason I sell my works on Kindle. And that is because it is pretty much compatible with every device. iBooks does not have the audience Kindle has.

 

[Adey]

Amazon never adds fees for delivery.

Perhaps not, but when my book was initially released at $4.99 on Kindle, the price appeared on the store as $5.29 including FREE Whispernet delivery, so I guess to an untrained eye that makes it look like there are no fees added - trust me there are (or at least there were, as of today the two prices match).

Also, most of the publishers I've spoken to, including my own, tell me that lower prices on Amazon are not just related to the model they are using. In simple terms, most want an iBooks presence but it's not worth half as much to "top the iBooks charts" as it is to "top the Kindle charts". So, if they are going to sell 100 books in a day, they WANT 90 of those to be sold via the kindle so that they get good chart positions. To sell 50 on iBooks and 50 on Kindle would not give them the chart positions they crave.

I would LOVE to have been number one on Kindle, but as it happened I got number one on the iBookstore so that's what I run with. I still see Kindle as THE place to top the charts, though almost every small to medium size publisher I've spoken to says that they reduce the price on Kindle to try to make that happen.

The agency model has many adverse bearings on the publishing industry but if you think that a huge saving on Amazon is COMPLETELY down to the model then you're wrong, in SOME instances (and I could, but won't, name names) the publishers are deliberately setting a lower price on Amazon because they have no interest (perhaps quite rightly) in selling via iBooks, just in maintaining a presence.

 

[SBlue1]

Apple needs three things in this market;
- iBooks needs to be readable on the desktop.
- The need to add content.
- They need to competitive with their pricing.

agree

 

[whooleytoo]

Is there anything wrong with reading a REAL book?

I have to admit, reading in iBooks was better than expected (and it's great having easy, 'free' access to lots of books in the public domain), but there's no comparison for me. A book that won't become obsolete, components won't fail (as fast ), battery won't run out - wins every time!

And without real books, what do I put on my shelves? I can't afford dozens of iPads!

Still, the iBooks/eBooks concept is handy, for travelling etc.

 

[Daveoc64]

Perhaps not, but when my book was initially released at $4.99 on Kindle, the price appeared on the store as $5.29 including FREE Whispernet delivery, so I guess to an untrained eye that makes it look like there are no fees added - trust me there are (or at least there were, as of today the two prices match).

This is simply BS.

Amazon's pricing does not work like that - I read the agreement two days ago, I'm currently planning to publish a book.

 

[macUser2007]

Lower prices... when I can buy the Kindle version of a book (that I can read in the Kindle app on my iPad) from Amazon for 30% less than in the iBookstore... I won't be buying many (if any) books through the iBookstore

Yeah, well. The prices at Amazon and other ebook retailers would have been even lower, if Apple had not tried to muscle its way in by getting in bed with the publishers and pushing the agency model, which forbids retailers like Amazon to drop prices lower than allowed by the publishers.

Apple has been an evil force in the ebooks market.

Oh, and what happened to Steve Jobs' "Nobody reads anymore...?"

(I do like eInk much better for pure reading - I don't read at all on my iPad anymore).

 

[caspersoong]

The only thing that made me not buy ebooks on the iBookstore is the price. All others are only benefits to me.