Tag Archives: bookstore

Google Opens Huge Online Ebook Store

by Cimaxion

Creating some good healthy competition for the likes of Amazon and iBookstore, Google has opened its online ebook store.  Ebooks are available for Android, iPhone, iPad, iPod and Web reading.  You can keep your ebooks in your Google library for access from different devices and readers, always maintaining sync with where you left off.  Downloads are offered in Adobe PDF or EPUB formats.  Google keeps insisting that its books are not compatible with the Kindle, even though they offer PDFs which are easily supported by later model Kindles.  I’m not sure what this double-speak is about.  You can also convert Google’s EPUB format to Kindle-friendly MOBI format by going over to download a free copy of the Calibre ebook management software that enables simple conversion and transfer.   I downloaded a free Google ebook of Sherlock Holmes stories and converted it for my Kindle in seconds.  The result looks just like a book purchased from Amazon for my Kindle.  In fact, some of the books I’ve purchased directly from Amazon have shown such grotesque typos and formatting errors that I wonder if anyone is doing any proofreading at all anymore.  That’s mainly the fault of the ebook publishers, but Amazon could certainly crack down on what amounts to seriously broken merchandise.  Competition from the Google juggernaut is a welcome bit of relief.

Google is capitalizing on their enormous library of scanned books for some of their offerings, especially in the free download area.  Most importantly however, Google is allowing independent bookstores to sell Google ebooks through their own retail sites.  The revenue from such sales is shared with the bookstore owners.  I also understand that the revenue split with publishers is very fair, with the publishers getting 70% and 30% going to Google.

Kindles and Little Bookstores

by Editor | 4 Comments

I don’t understand much about the book business.  But I do know what makes a person want to go and be somewhere.  I read a good blog post at The Devil’s Accountant about the troubles small bookstores have with the existing book business and the emerging business of ebook publishing.  Small bookstores have to purchase books at wholesale for too much money and can’t make enough profit when they sell at retail.  That’s true.  But most movie theaters can’t make much money selling tickets either.  They sell candy and sodas at big markups to make good money.  In fact, there’s no such thing as the ‘movie business.’  There’s only a candy selling business that uses movies to bring you up to the candy counter.

An important point I’d also like to make about independent and small bookstores is that most of them really suck.  Seriously.  Most small bookstores are just a modest room full of books on poorly built shelves.  Dead boring.  Nothing puts me to sleep faster than a crappy independent bookstore.  Good riddance to them.  Most independent bookstores can’t hold a candle to any Barnes & Noble or a Borders.  Don’t open a bookstore if all you want to do is sell books.  You’re an idiot if you do.  And I won’t give you my money.  I’ll give it to Amazon.  They are not boring.  They are smart and interesting.  I enjoy watching them slaughter dull little bookshop owners every single day.  It’s a fascinating and wonderful bloodbath.  These booksellers are being eaten by lions and their screams are rare amusement.

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