There are two lessons in the following story.
First, there are a lot of countries I couldn’t find on a map if you held a loaded crossbow to my head, despite listening to They Might be Giants’ Alphabet of Nations about sixteen million times.
Thanks to Brandyllyn, I have a long, long list of them. She was in the UK, and was unable to buy a digital copy of Loretta Chase’s Mr. Impossible for her flight back to the US. Why?
Have a look at the countries where she could have purchased it – in her estimation, it’s “Every Country Ever except the United Kingdom. WTF?”
WTF indeed. Tuvula? Burundi? I confess: I had to look them up.
Let me add my plea to that of many others, and reveal the second lesson in this entry: digital books in English have a market outside English-speaking countries.. and inside English speaking countries, too. It’s a sad, sad thing that it would be easier to find a pirated copy inside the UK than a legitimate digital copy.
Where are you, geographically? Do you have problems finding digital books where you are? What’s your solution?
PS. While I need to do a more current search around, but last time I checked there was only one publisher doing a reasonable number of ebooks all together, and that is Avon. Most publishers seem not to have taken up e-rights – or not used them on the limited amount of romance they buy for AU release
Trying to get some ebooks here in New Zealand is difficult, but then so is trying to get print books! It really is ridiculous. Postage here can be exorbitant and when you factor in the exchange rate… it really is crap.
Most of what I buy in the way of ebooks is through Samhain and Loose Id as well as Allromanceebooks. These sites are fine. But, many major chains I cannot buy through.
I read on my ipod touch, which is ok. Can be a little hard on the eyes though. But, are you also aware that there are no other actual ebook readers for sale in New Zealand? Anywhere? Sony told me that there were copyright issues… and when I said how ridiculous (I was rather cross by this time) the young guy then turned round and said that it was also matter of support for the device and that Sony did not want to support it in NZ. O-o Charming. Despite Kindle being shipped to Aussie soon, it is not coming here. I am not sure why. But to be honest the thought not being able to re read what I’d already purchased in pdf is not great. Article here http://bit.ly/fayx2
At this stage I think I have become inured to it!! Am waiting for the apple tablet in the sky!
Another Aussie here, one who was starting to buy more ebooks impulsively for her iphone. However, the whole geographical thing has put a stop to that idea. Lately most of the books that I have wanted to buy from Fictionwise or BoB have had the restriction so I just haven’t got them. I loved the ebook thing as there were no shipping costs and there was that whole instant gratification thing too. Wish they would fix the problem so we could get the books again.
Fictionwise slapping on the georestrictions makes sense to me since it’s now owned by B&N after (which is another interesting thing BTW, small pub ebooks (some print, too) are disappearing from B&N).
I’ve been terribly spoiled by living in the States for a while, it’s going to hurt BIG TIME when we eventually head back to NZ, for both eBooks and print. About the one lucky thing going for me is I will still have a USA bank account etc.
Georestrictions are one of the great things about the eBook only publishers. Doesn’t help much for the NY eBooks, but there are some great reads out there still from the smaller pubs.
I’m in South Korea, and face the same problems.
It is really a nice post, both knowledge as well as information. Really geography have lots of problem. and it need to be rectify.