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by JohnTHaller 4345 days ago
The publisher can always sell directly as an unencrypted EPUB and MOBI (works on Kindle) to the consumer and set their own pricing and percentages.
3 comments
lesterbuck 4344 days ago
Not exactly. Turns out you can sell via Amazon, or you can sell directly, but if you use the undocumented Amazon-only tool to construct your .mobi, you can't sell that directly. And Amazon is now blocking the output of many/all other ebook construction software so you can't use Send to Kindle or email. USB is the only option to load a book.

http://devblog.avdi.org/2014/04/02/why-does-amazon-hate-eboo...

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mintplant2 4344 days ago
Just yesterday I used http://epub2mobi.com/ to convert a public domain ePub file to MOBI, then sent that to my Kindle's email address. It was delivered wirelessly to my Kindle. Are you sure this hasn't changed? Or is epub2mobi doing something to circumvent this?
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jamesbritt 4344 days ago
You can use numerous other tools to create the mobi and sell that eleswhere while you also sell the kindle mobi on Amazon.

I've yet to run into a problem sending all sorts of files, ebook or otherwise (aside from epub), to my Kindle.

That article seems to overstate issues with generating files readable on Kindle.

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mcguire 4344 days ago
On the other hand, I've had absolutely no problems pointing a tablet's browser at a .mobi's URL and downloading it directly to ebook reading software.

(Do modern Kindle readers not include browsers? I've never looked on mine.)

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krschultz 4344 days ago
I buy my OReilly books direct and send them to my Kindle all the time. They even work in the Kindle cloud reader on my desktop.
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tjl 4344 days ago
Do you know which publisher sells for all your favourite authors? I certainly know for some of them, but not others. What about when you just hear about a book from someone? This is why people go to bookstores.

I'd be a lot happier if everyone went to no-DRM or at least interchangeable DRM so you could move to a different e-reader. Amazon and iBooks are the odd ones out. iBooks doesn't have a big marketshare, but Amazon definitely does.

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mcguire 4344 days ago
There's this thing, on the internet. It's specifically designed for locating the publisher of a given author. We call it a "search engine". :-)

I personally go to bookstores to find books and authors that I've never heard of before---something that is actually quite hard to do online.

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notatoad 4344 days ago
they can, and many try, but for the most part people don't buy books outside of their chosen e-reader platform (ibooks, kindle store, kobo). Amazon has significant value to add that they've built up over time and that publishers can't easily get: recommendations, integration with e-reader devices, a huge amount of traffic, and a huge number of people with one-click purchasing already set up.
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