In the Sunday Times this week they reviewed websites that you can buy eBooks from. Seeing as the Sunday Times is now subscription only, I’ll summarise the main points from the article in the next couple of blog posts.
With eBook sales now outstripping those of the printed versions on some websites we cast an eye over the best places to buy an eBook.
Amazon eBooks – overall good for range of titles
Amazon sells both eBook hardware (the Kindle ereader) and software (the titles themselves.) It’s a similar business model to Apple’s and has the same pros and cons: in return for class-leading integration between the two types of product you are locked into a single source for new titiels, because only the Kindle reader will display eBooks bought from Amazon (unless you use the new Kindle apps, which allow users of tables such as the iPad to access the books.) Even so, the Kindle is the biggest selling eBook reader in the World, while Amazon’s eBook store is the best stocked. Searches for books and information are displayed quickly and sensibly. In our testing, it not only had available every one of Nielsen BookScan’s top 10 fiction bestsellers but the cost for all 10 was less than half that of their retail price paper versions: £49.26 instead of £102.90. Amazon offers more than 650,000 paid for titles, on top of 1m free books accessed via a search engine that brings your best match. Setting up an account and buying eBooks is a one or two click operation: downloads take a few seconds and can be done wirelessly on the Kindle.
The Sunday Times Verdict: The biggest , cheapest and simplest eBook store, as long as you’re willing to use a Kindle reader or app – 4 stars out of 5.
Read the reviews for The Book Depository, WHSmith, Waterstone’s and eBooks.com
