Let's talk about shops!

[quivo]

I've always wondered which sources people tend to turn to, including official channels, when looking for ebooks. Fictionwise has earned a firm place on my list, and I know of other stores like BooksOnBoard and so forth, but have never really tried them because of the hassle of setting up different accounts.

Where do you guys tend to buy? In your experience, where are the best places to buy from, esp. as regards DRM, activation, and all those niggling little customer service issues you can't really know until you lose a download or find that the book isn't working?

Comments

[wide_worlds_joy]

I can understand DRM ebooks, I really can. There is a lot of copyright tied up in the books themselves, and the investment from the publisher in making the print and the ebook copies. So I don't mind only being able to read it on specified devices as a result. I'm pretty okay with that. Just as I am with DRM music for the most part.

What I do object to is having to use a specific "digital editions" software to read the darned book, and having to jump through several hundred hoops to get another device approved (or worse having to buy it again to read on a non-approved device).

If the ebook people would do like Napster does and give a device, say a ST:TNG PADS like device (not the copyrighted Kindle, but like it) and a subscription fee to download their books AND use it on up to two other devices, then I think that the whole concept of ebooks would do much better. Yes have them expire and have to resync with the subscription. And if your subscription goes, then you lose the access to the books you downloaded. I can see that all day long.

But I'm just as irritated with proprietary ebooks as I am with iTunes. I purchase the book, then I can't read it anyplace but through their software? That messes me up and I want someone's head. So I turn to poorly formatted text versions of the book I can find for free if only because I can read it on many things.