You want to buy eBooks for a fair price? Only if you are American…

28 September 2009 by Shaun 7 Comments

ereader The continuing saga of geographic restrictions on eBooks rumbles on and seems to be getting worse (for me) as the days pass. The arrival of an email from eReader pointing to three titles which are available for only $1.99 and a selection of many other titles looked good. However, I am not allowed to buy any of them…

I have just finished reading my latest book and decided to have a search for my next read. Every single titles I have tried to buy is geographically restricted and thus I would have to look at something I would not normally buy to read. I read somewhere that only 10% of eBooks are restricted and if true, I presume that to be a very large percentage of the best sellers because that figure does not relate to what I am finding.

Gavin came up with a solution for reading eBooks if you are based outside the US which is here, but it involved him paying a lot more for a book that he should have to. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is now $15.75 at Powell’s books which is quite good compared to the $20 eReader want (not that I can buy it from them), but that is still expensive compared to the initial $9.99 the book was offered at through eReader. You can also buy the same book for a whopping £14.99 in the App Store which is of course crazy, but it seems to be doing brisk business with people who know no better.

My main issue is that eReader, fictionwise and others have done nothing to reduce the frustration non-US residents feel over this. We still receive emails promoting books we cannot buy and the sites are set up in a way which gives you no option to filter the books. When I log in, why does eReader not only show me books I can buy? They have my details and could do this fairly easily, but instead we have to browse countless titles which we cannot buy. Also, why can I but The Lost Symbol in iTunes, but not at eReader? Maybe they need to look at the publishers they are using.

I know I keep banging on about this, but have written this article to find out if any of you have come up with a better solution to this problem. My solution is to not buy eBooks at all at the moment.

7 Comments »

Eric said:

The geographic restriction is annoying me immensely. Even Australians are getting walloped around by an archaic publishing model.

Two things can be said AGAINST geographic restrictions.
1) The model is applied print books and against parallel importation to protect the print book industry. But we are talking about electronic media which is sold through only one supplier – a completely different model. A bit like the Apple Appstore – except that it hates the rest of the world if you live outside the US.

2) The very practice itself is anti-competitive and a restraint of trade. Why can’t I buy something which someone in the US (or Canada) is able to purchase from a single source supplier (barring trade secrets and so on)?
Doesn’t the UK and Australia have a free trade agreement that should remove these trade barriers?

I have queried Fictionwise / EReader / Barnes and Noble on this and their response has been disappointing. The only other avenue is to source these books from some less than legitimate sources which rob the authors of their dues.

I love reading ebooks and to date, I have over 700 ebooks in the Fictionwise library. Since the geographic restrictions have been implemented, the selection has been severely limited.

I don’t see the logic on “geographic restrictions” on books published several years ago and difficult to obtain in the US and never imported into my country.

# 28 September 2009 at 5:32 am

joel said:

“Doesn’t the UK and Australia have a free trade agreement that should remove these trade barriers?”

Since when was the free trade agreement about benefiting consumers outside the US, and removing barriers that benefit big business?? I thought it was about ENFORCING barriers to benefit mostly US coporations..

Not to mention the benefits for Big Pharma, the PBS system in Australia was a specific target of the free trade agreements..

# 28 September 2009 at 9:37 am

joel said:

OK some barriers are lifted (tarrifs) but anything IP related is enforced..

# 28 September 2009 at 9:46 am

eccleshill said:

Not buying any ebooks at the moment until ereader & fictionwise stop treating UK readers as second-class citizens. Haven’t stop reading ebooks, though…

# 28 September 2009 at 10:32 am

vboelema said:

I stopped using ereader because it’s app kept crashing on my previous Nokia. Does anyone use Mobipocket? Or do they have the same restrictions?

This sort of carry on does encourage people to find books their own way though doesn’t it?!

# 28 September 2009 at 11:33 am

Dragged to the front page: eBooks you can’t read | PDA-247 said:

[...] of Eric’s comments has been ‘dragged to the front page’ today concerning a 247 article on eBooks and geographic [...]

# 7 October 2009 at 3:57 am

RKZ said:

It has reached the point that if you live in Australia you run a Mac you HAVE to buy Adobe ebooks and run the appalling Digital Editions. There are NO online ebook retailers in Australia that sell ereader ebooks for Palm OS. For me as a person with a physical disability ebooks are my only independent access to books. I don’t know what more frustrating the microsoft monopoly or DRM without equality of access.

# 28 November 2009 at 3:24 am