An kindle user considers a kobo

[jbcohen]

I currently have only a kindle however I am considering a kobo glo to add some competition to my ebooks. However I do not see any reason to do that if I am going to be consistently forced to pay more for ebooks on the kobo book store. I am not concerned about the price of the reader itself, since that's a one time cost rather I am more interested in the ebook costs since they are re-occurring long run costs. Do you find that amazon's prices are < kobo's prices, amazon = kobo prices or amazon > kobo prices?

[49Kat]

It probably depends on the book, but I have often found Kobo books to be less expensive than the Kindle books I've been considering purchasing, which actually surprised me.

I check this thread here, too:

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=115233

Not every book is eligible for a discount, but it doesn't hurt to check.

I have a Vox and an iPad with Kobo and Kindle apps, so I price check and go with the best deal before I make a purchase. My first reader was a Sony PRS 650, which doesn't see a lot of use anymore because it doesn't have wifi (but it has a much better battery life when I do use it). I've purchased at the Sony store, but price-wise it has never been any less expensive.

I do get a lot of freebies from Amazon. Kobo's selection of free books doesn't even come close in comparison.

I also borrow a lot of e-books from our public library system. I use the Overdrive app on the Vox and iPad, and the Sony device's software is already compatible. Where I live, you can't do that with a Kindle.

[jbcohen]

I see an element in Kobo's strategy, use of discount codes, amazon doesn't issue codes. Might be less if I can come up with a Kobo code.

This is exactly what I wanted to talk about, 49 has saved me posting the same question over in the Sony forum.

I would like to inject some competition into my ebook reading, which is strictly amazon for now.

[fbrII]

I don't consider Kobo as a device that locks me into the Kobo Bookstore. (Amazon does have a better book store than Kobo.) However, I look at it from the perspective of epub vs. mobi or AZW. I buy from BooksOnBoard, Google, Sony Reader Store, Kobo, Barnes And Noble, Diesel & others and read all of them on my Kobo.

I think you should look at it as the world of epub vs. Amazon and in my opinion there really is not a lot of difference to chose from. Epub has more variety, you will get cupon/discount offers for non-agency books. Amazon will have more give-aways and some independent authors you won't find in other bookstores, but, all in all, I find the variety, competitiveness etc., pretty even between epub and mobi.

If you don't have Calibre and the necessary plug-ins to read, whatever you want, on whatever you want, and you can afford it, I would say having an epub reader makes perfect sense. Over the course of a year you would probably get back most of your investment by finding better pricing at other books stores, provided you are a dedicated shopper.

And the same would hold true if you had a Kobo and were looking to buy a Kindle.

Personally if I were to only have one e-reader, I would pick the one that I thought was the best reading experience and not fret about epub vs mobi/AZW. As far as software, despite the speed bumps along the way my preference remains Kobo due to the font selection, ability to fine tune fonts, shelves etc.

[oj829]

Once Agency pricing goes the way of the dodo bird, Amazon will once again resume undercutting everybody on price. That's just reality, and anyone shopping purely on price is probably going to be happier in the long run with Amazon and their loss-leading $9.99 deals.

I recently examined the NY Times top 10, and compared the pricing at three big stores, including Kobo and Amazon, and the pricing was identical across the board except for two HarperCollins titles, where Amazon was cheaper than Kobo and B&N.

So going forward in the short term, pricing is going to be determined mostly by publisher policy, and somewhat by Amazon's ability to drop prices again from select publishers. In the long run, Amazon's plans for world domination will mean that anyone shopping on price alone should just go the Amazon route.

If anything good can come from Amazon being the WalMart of e-books, it will be forcing publishers to come down on their wholesale price because Amazon won't bleed money forever.

In another test, I examined the top 30 titles in a particular specialty, and looked at their pricing in Kobo vs. Google. For some of the smaller publishers, Kobo offered okay discounts. On some academic titles, the needle went back and forth between Kobo and Google. The biggest bother, it seemed to me, was that there were two or three titles no offered by Kobo at all. This will probably be the next frontier of Amazon's fight: publishing exclusives.

Finally, in the realm of Android tablets (I know you're looking at e-ink, I'm just throwing this out there), non-Kindle/non-Nook buyers can always download the store apps which let them read Amazon/B&N books, while store-branded tablet hardware owners are likely to stay in their walled garden without substantial and time-consuming efforts. If fragmentation does occur in the marketplace going forward such that some titles are only available from some stores, you're going to want to look at solutions that let you have access to all your purchases without jumping through hoops.

[nogle]

Originally Posted by oj829

Once Agency pricing goes the way of the dodo bird, Amazon will once again resume undercutting everybody on price. That's just reality, and anyone shopping purely on price is probably going to be happier in the long run with Amazon and their loss-leading $9.99 deals.

Except Kobo is now owned by Ratuken, a large Japanese company. For Amazon to compete with loss leaders will likely now only cause wholesale reduction in profitabliity of eBooks and the destruction of several competitors, possibly including themselves. In the past, Amazon could use loss leaders because they were the only 600lb gorilla; that is no longer the case.

[rashkae]

Actually, I find the prices at Kobo to be consistently lower than Amazon. And B&N lower still. Amazon made lots of healines with their $9.99 loss leaders. But people forget that amazon makes money selling books, (subsidizes their low to non-existent hardware margins by them.) If they sell some books at a loss, it's only because they make up the differnece with higher prices in general.

That being said, I strongly suggest you don't let the tail wag the dog. Take a bit of time to lear what Apprentice Alf has to teach about removing DRM, and let not your choice of hardware have any affect on where you buy your books.

[oj829]

Originally Posted by nogle

Except Kobo is now owned by Ratuken, a large Japanese company.

For that matter, B&N's tablet business just enjoyed a huge investment (and a subtle rebranding) from Microsoft. Things are going to be interesting for a while.

For Amazon to compete with loss leaders will likely now only cause wholesale reduction in profitabliity of eBooks and the destruction of several competitors, possibly including themselves.

Publishers will blink on wholesale before letting all the ebook retailers go out of business, just like the music business did when it discovered it could no longer sell CDs for $16.99. Also like the music business, the publishers want more than one 600-lb. gorilla to negotiate with, so that terms are not dictated by said gorilla. And last resort, a DRM-laden bookstore represents huge support costs which are now being shouldered entirely by e-book retailers and not publishers. Publishers aren't gonna hang their own shingle out on the Internet while DRM lives and breathes.


(Just my $.02)

[EldRick]

One way to answer the original question on pricing is to use calibre to search for prices on books of interest - the Get Books icon.

I did this with a recent popular fiction book, and B&N was $3 lower than Kobo or Amazon.

[Noranoo]

ive had my vox for nearly a year and have now bought a kindle fire hd.

i hate the kobo store with a passion and have mostly stuck with amazon...i like their comprehensive search facility, esp for free books.

my vox has been hassle free, but i have to say that this kindle hd is super. the regular kindle fire 2 is not something i wouldve bought...its a clunky looking thing for a start, nevermind the specs. and no, i havent bought this to use as a tablet..just as a reader with extra bits for fun.

apart from the new gadget fascination, i have experience of amazons uk customer service to be excellent whereas kobo apparently doesnt have the best reputation for resolving problems.

for me, amazon is just easier and quicker all round.

[jbcohen]

I have a tablet don't use that for book reading the battery will never hold up with the amount I read on a daily basis. The battery would never make it through the day, would most like die one quarter of the way through the day.

[tea2]

From Canada, they're pretty consistently (but not inevitably) cheaper for me than Amazon. Not sure about outside Canada, tho.

[dakini]

your initial question was how amazon and kobo's prices compare to each other.

to be honest, that's going to depend on what/who you read, so some extent, and what the priving practices of those publishers are.

if i were you, i'd look at the last 10 books you bought, and look up the info, compare several of the book sites listed, and see who's cheapest for the types of books you buy. i might not have the same results as you, if i read different types of books.

as others have noted, one of the benefits of the kobo, because it reads epubs, is we have a wider range of stores we can buy books from, whereas the kindle's locked into the amazon store (sorta). so you might also want to do price point comparisons across several of the stores, esp. diesel and B&N.

anyhoo, good luck.

[speakingtohe]

Maybe off topic. Hope not.

I bought a Kobo Mini 3 days ago on impulse and have to say that the reading experience is far better than Sony T1 and Kindle 3. Overall it is just nicer and easier to read and this is on the tiny model.

Display is more paper-like
Easy to change fonts, font weights, line spacing, margins. And the fonts appear crisper
Page turns seem faster and more transparent even when refreshing.
Virtually no glare.
Small, light, so easy to hold you almost don't notice you are holding it.

Caveats:
No buttons which took me an hour to learn to deal with.
Occasional freeze which can be fixed instantly by swiping instead of tapping.

I am a bit upset that I no longer want to read on my T1 despite the larger screen size.

The Kobo Mini is my first Kobo and I am totally impressed.

Helen

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by oj829

Once Agency pricing goes the way of the dodo bird, Amazon will once again resume undercutting everybody on price.

That's what folks figured when Harper Collins dropped agency pricing, but in reality Books on Board has been the one undercutting everyone.