SA not ready for e-books

[AfricanTech]

also not getting the high bandwidth cost statement, so far only two things have limited my own personal adoption of e-books:

1. Kindle, unlike the vast majority of other imported electronics, is MUCH more expensive here than overseas

2. Kobo, at the nearest PnP to me that sells it, is stuffed in a corner with an incomplete setup or flat batteries etc etc making it impossible to play with them in store ... zero marketing, zero salesmanship in store, weak execution

1. Not really - it works out about the same when you apply currency conversion rates (granted, we don't get the cheapest, ad support version here), but pricing is about on par

2. It's a supermarket! They treat everything like a box of cornflakes - that said, their Kobo's are cheap. Have you seen where they keep their "TV's" - on top of the cooldrink fridge.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

1. Not really - it works out about the same when you apply currency conversion rates (granted, we don't get the cheapest, ad support version here), but pricing is about on par

2. It's a supermarket! They treat everything like a box of cornflakes - that said, their Kobo's are cheap. Have you seen where they keep their "TV's" - on top of the cooldrink fridge.

uhm ...
paperwhite 2 on amazon (not ad supported) = 139 USD or 1500 ZAR
price on amazon

locally it is around 2500 ZAR
local price

that is a 66% price hike post currency conversion?!? or please point me at a local retailer that sells at around 1500 ZAR?

and yes, granted it is a supermarket, but they have exclusive distribution rights for Kobo, you'd think they'd try a bit harder ... alas

 

[R13...]

uhm ...
paperwhite 2 on amazon (not ad supported) = 139 USD or 1500 ZAR
price on amazon

locally it is around 2500 ZAR
local price

that is a 66% price hike post currency conversion?!? or please point me at a local retailer that sells at around 1500 ZAR?

and yes, granted it is a supermarket, but they have exclusive distribution rights for Kobo, you'd think they'd try a bit harder ... alas

The kindle paper white costs more than the listed 139 when you buy it for international. The 139 price is US only.

 

[diabolus]

Since when? Steam, PSN and XBLA's stuff is far cheaper than retail games that have been out for a while.



Damn. Now that's DRM to the extreme. :wtf:

When last have you bought relatively new games on Steam? It's way more expensive. PC Games in retail does not cost $50/$60 in the shops. I don't think one can exactly judge the pricing entirely on "Steam Sales" where 1-2 year old games go for $10. The standard pricing for a new game is between $50/$60 (R500-R600), trust me, it's cheaper in the shops here , usually R400-R450 for a box copy.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

The kindle paper white costs more than the listed 139 when you buy it for international. The 139 price is US only.

more yes, about 10% more in the Netherlands at the big electronic retailers like mediamarkt when i was there in November last year

not 66% more, 66% is shocking, especially given pretty much all other electronics do not differ anywhere close to that

 

[SauRoNZA]

I can sell my books one day should i fall on hard times.
I can give my books to my kids, friends, other family members to read. I can donate them to the needy etc.

I don't own a Kindle but I do believe you can lend books to other people.

This I see as a bonus because you can "pull back" your book whenever you feel like which solves the age old problem of books not coming back home.

Then again I generally feel that when I give someone a book they should pay it forward if they enjoyed it.

 

[Ecco]

I don't own a Kindle but I do believe you can lend books to other people.

This I see as a bonus because you can "pull back" your book whenever you feel like which solves the age old problem of books not coming back home.

Then again I generally feel that when I give someone a book they should pay it forward if they enjoyed it.

Hmm, I never knew this. But it would still require the person receive the book to also have a Kindle

 

[Ninja'd]

Hmm, I never knew this. But it would still require the person receive the book to also have a Kindle

Maybe it works with the Kindle app on Android.

 

[zeb]

I don't own a Kindle but I do believe you can lend books to other people.

Yup, but only for two weeks, and only once.

 

[zeb]

Maybe it works with the Kindle app on Android.

Yes it does.

 

[AfricanTech]

more yes, about 10% more in the Netherlands at the big electronic retailers like mediamarkt when i was there in November last year

not 66% more, 66% is shocking, especially given pretty much all other electronics do not differ anywhere close to that

Shipping old son, don't forget the shipping

Buy one directly from the US and see.

I will however concede that IC etc do try to rip us a new one where they can.

 

[shogun]

I am one of the people that will continue to buy physical books. And i know a lot of people like me.

My bookshelf grows with each book i buy, and it is an awesome thing to have.

I can sell my books one day should i fall on hard times.
I can give my books to my kids, friends, other family members to read. I can donate them to the needy etc.

You cant do any of these things with ebooks.

Really hope physical books remain for a long long time to come.

I'm the complete opposite. I hate collecting anything. The less I have the better, and I never used to read books. In my life, I've probably read a handful of books in my free time before this year (excluding study books etc). I tend to get all my content online, and seldom read fiction (unless it's reading something the ANC has promised in the media).

Late last year however that all changed. I downloaded the Kindle app on my Lumia, and all of a sudden i'm halfway through my third book. I can read my phone (that sounds weird) anywhere. At the airport, waiting in the car somewhere, at night with the lights off while I nod off to sleep (that's when I get the most reading done... I just invert the colours on the screen and turn the brightness down). It's super convenient, and I don't need to go to a shop and be limited to what they have in stock, or wait for something to be ordered.

I can read sample chapters of books (3 or 4 chapters in a sample so you can really get into it and decide if it's something you want to read).

If i'm reading a good book, and I recommend it to someone to read, but I am not done, they can download it at the push of a button, and it doesn't affect me in the slightest. No waiting for me to finish.

If my house burns down, or my phone gets stolen, I just re-download the books to the next device I have, and don't have to buy the book again.

I don't mind if physical book stores stay around. I get that some people love holding paper (or are at least used to it), but for me personally, paper books are dead weights.

 

[shogun]

The only valid reason there is maybe access to ereaders, the other reasons aren't valid. We get nearly all of the books available in eformat and the book size even for technical books uses very little bandwidth

I don't get the access to e-readers argument. I know very few people that don't have Android, iOS or Windows Phone / Windows 8 on their phones or tablets. The adoption of these devices is already massive, and they all run e-reader software like Kindle.

I think it's more likely a reading in general thing. People have so much content thrown at them that the don't read books in general. Series / Movies / Games tend to fill the evening boredom gap that books used to fill me thinks.

If I didn't read my phone (still sounds weird) at odd times, i'd get no book reading done at all.

 

[Diesel44]

I own a Kindle paperwhite for over a year now.

I hardly have bought any books for it.

You get so much books for free. On the amazon website itself.

Or I just go to Kindle Buffet each day to see what has been picked. There are more websites as well with free books as well.

Not to mentioned to the thousands of books you can buy for 99 cents each.

 

[MrGray]

I don't own a Kindle but I do believe you can lend books to other people.

This I see as a bonus because you can "pull back" your book whenever you feel like which solves the age old problem of books not coming back home.

Then again I generally feel that when I give someone a book they should pay it forward if they enjoyed it.

Well you can plug your kindle into a usb port and manually copy the book files in .mobi or .azw format although the .azw have encryption/drm though (although I've *heard* there are workarounds). If you find books in .mobi format online you can just load them via usb although the only downside is that they won't sync to all your devices unless you upload to amazon. I gather there is a booming underground trade in cracked books, so maybe impoverished locals are using the "sneakernet" i/o paying $14 for each book - adds up for some.

 

[Terencek]

For, um, 'managing' the DRM on books, the freebie download Calibre is your friend.... Brilliant too for converting singly or in batches, from one format (e.g. EPUB) to another (e.g. MOBI) until the happy day as happened with MP3s that most of us ended up using a standard format.

A less well-known feature of Calibre is that its News feature will pull in any of hundreds of daily, weekly or monthly publications, mostly free of charge, to enjoy on your e-reader. Including a few SA newspapers and magazines.

 

[SauRoNZA]

Well you can plug your kindle into a usb port and manually copy the book files in .mobi or .azw format although the .azw have encryption/drm though (although I've *heard* there are workarounds). If you find books in .mobi format online you can just load them via usb although the only downside is that they won't sync to all your devices unless you upload to amazon. I gather there is a booming underground trade in cracked books, so maybe impoverished locals are using the "sneakernet" i/o paying $14 for each book - adds up for some.

Yeah I use my iPad like that.

 

[noxibox]

No poor country is going to have a large uptake of ebooks. The problems of illiteracy, book prices and multiple languages have nothing specifically to do with ebooks. For anyone who can afford the reader the bandwidth is cheap too. And frankly if local publishers were staying out of the ebook business because stupid concerns about copyright infringement they're only shooting themselves in the foot.

We are not known to be a nation of avid readers.

Perceptions aside what are the facts?

The SA consumer book market is small, since the majority of books are ordered from Amazon (physical or via Kindle).

Not for paper books. For a long time now it has rarely been worth ordering fiction from Amazon. In fact the only books that might still be worthwhile buying from them are technical books.

It is pretty much a given that Amazon rules in the eBook distribution and as much as Apple tries, it will be tough to catch up. Some of the niche-solutions (such as Kalahari) will need to put up serious investments to compete locally.

It turns out books from Apple can only be read on iPhones and iPads. Not even on a Mac. That's just stupid. The local guys need to get sensible with their pricing. I'm not going to buy an ebook from them that I can get for half the price from Kobo or Amazon.

An educational book printed today, is outdated tomorrow - so there is absolutely no point in distributing physical paper for educational purposes.

This is an area where ebooks can really shine. At university I remember the secondhand bookshop being filled with earlier editions that only the poorest students would buy.

I am one of the people that will continue to buy physical books. And i know a lot of people like me.

My bookshelf grows with each book i buy, and it is an awesome thing to have.

If I bought anymore paper books I'd have to build another room to house them. Thankfully I no longer have any need to buy more.

I can sell my books one day should i fall on hard times.

Perhaps, but you'll be lucky to 10c for every Rand you spent buying them. Unless they're rare they're effectively worthless.

I can give my books to my kids, friends, other family members to read.

I can and I do. If they don't have a reader, then they'll have to do without though.

They have, at least once that the world knows of. Which is (at least in part) why I want nothing to do with that kind of abusive relationship.

Me neither, which is why I don't rely on them to manage my books. Amazon have no access whatsoever to my Kindle.

1. Kindle, unlike the vast majority of other imported electronics, is MUCH more expensive here than overseas

Not really, it is about the same as other electronics.

 

[noxibox]

Late last year however that all changed. I downloaded the Kindle app on my Lumia, and all of a sudden i'm halfway through my third book.

I read a lot more since I've had a Kindle. It is easy to carry around and can be read with one hand, something that allows me to read easily while eating or donating blood. You can't read a paperback with one hand without butchering it, and it is very hard to turn pages.

This I see as a bonus because you can "pull back" your book whenever you feel like which solves the age old problem of books not coming back home.

I don't even need to pull it back, because I always have access to my copy.

more yes, about 10% more in the Netherlands at the big electronic retailers like mediamarkt when i was there in November last year

not 66% more, 66% is shocking, especially given pretty much all other electronics do not differ anywhere close to that

UK price is about R1950, local landed price from Amazon is around R2200. Shipping accounts for the more than that difference in price.

The kindle paper white costs more than the listed 139 when you buy it for international. The 139 price is US only.

It is $139, but there is shipping and VAT on top of that.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

Shipping old son, don't forget the shipping

Buy one directly from the US and see.

I will however concede that IC etc do try to rip us a new one where they can.

shipping is easily discarded as a reason when you compare almost any other electronic goods, we import ALL of it, yet pay roughly the same price as our overseas brethren, the kindle is very special in its 66% markup in SA

or is this handheld lightweight e-book reader of such enormity that it carries shipping costs that are higher than that of other electronics?

note i don't intend on buying from amazon and shipping here then comparing prices, i am comparing prices of our market (i.e. any local retailers who handle the shipping themselves) to the US price (where locally shipping is often free)

for other electronic goods it is a negligible difference, for the kindle 66% ... not roughly in line, completely blown out the water, see how many US peeps buy the damn thing for 230 USD

even in a first world country that is overpriced, but in deep dark africa? let's hike the price 66% for the poor countries, makes a lot of sense, i'd prefer they treat us as equal trading partners rather and keep the free UN food drop for themselves