I'm starting to get buyer's remorse because of inadequate book selection

[DRW53OH]

I was a VERY early adopter of the nook, and as a device I like it a lot.  BUT I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that it is going to be the betamax of the electronic world.  Today David Remnick's bio of President Obama, The Bridge, was published.  BN doesn't have it as an ebook.  But Amazon does.  Sony does.  (So the good news is that I can buy it from Sony and convert it via Adobe Digital Editions, but I'd rather just download it from BN.)  And this is not an isolated occurrence.  Lots and lots of books are out for kindle and the sony reader (and, for all I know, the iPad).  For backlist editions, this makes sense, but for newly-published books?  Have publishers decided that the nook is going to be left behind in the marketplace, so they're not bothering? 

A valuable lesson--stick with the market leader unless there's a VERY good reason not to do so.

[Dyrinn45]

there is a good reason...because the nook doesn't need books exclusively from B&N. Do you buy your gasoline, oil, brakes, and tires from Toyota?

[FrogAlum]

This one is weird, I was looking through the coming soon and new release pages for the nook last night and it was there for pre-order then.  It's no where to be found now.

[DRW53OH]

The advantage to buying directly from BN is that it goes directly into the B&N Library (cover flow, on my online library, etc), plus there aren't conversion glitches that sometimes occur.  I have many many sideloaded books from other sources, so I don't need a lecture, thank you very much.

[DRW53OH]

Let's not forget, as well, that I can't use my BN ebook gift cards to buy a book from, say, Sony, can I?

[LarryOnLI]

@DRW53OH,

B&N almost definitely will have that book and others for the nook.

For some reason B&N appears to be very slow in adding new release eBooks to their website and nook store.

If you check back tomorrow (the day after release) you will probably find the books.

I agree with you that this needs to be improved. I am waiting for a new release from my favorite author (Jim Butcher) that was released today.

SOny and B&N both use ePub format. It is not a different file for the Sony. You do not convert the file using ADE, you authorize it.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

DRW53OH wrote:

Today David Remnick's bio of President Obama, The Bridge, was published.  BN doesn't have it as an ebook.  But Amazon does.  Sony does.  (So the good news is that I can buy it from Sony and convert it via Adobe Digital Editions, but I'd rather just download it from BN.)

The advantage of the nook is that you aren't tied to just one vendor. You can get e-books from almost anywhere except Amazon.

If sideloading turns you off, you should get a Kindle. Amazon will have a much larger selection than B&N for the foreseeable future. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. You can't sideload all that much into a Kindle, but if you don't like sideloading that shouldn't matter.

Me, I've bought zero e-books from B&N. Essentially all of my content is sideloaded.

[icebike]

Doug_Pardee wrote:

 Amazon will have a much larger selection than B&N for the foreseeable future. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.  

Well it comes as a surprise to me.

Go to the Kindle store.  They advertise more the 450,000 ebooks.

Go to the B&N Ebook page.  They Advertise over 1 million ebook titles.

Back when I went to school, 1 million beat 450,000 ever time, and twice on Sunday.

But I do admit the babe on the Buy a Kindle page is cuter than anything on the Nook page.

[DRW53OH]

If you count scanned library books from 1895 available through Google, then maybe B&N has a million.  Of course, those are virtually unreadable on the small screen, so I think the 400,000 to 1 million comparison is pretty lame.  

Kindle and nook can both use Gutenberg books, of which I have a bunch (I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that I don't like sideloading, BTW). 

I do like my nook, I really do.  But I wish it had better selection of books.

[Alley415]

DRW53OH wrote:

If you count scanned library books from 1895 available through Google, then maybe B&N has a million.  Of course, those are virtually unreadable on the small screen, so I think the 400,000 to 1 million comparison is pretty lame.  

Kindle and nook can both use Gutenberg books, of which I have a bunch (I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that I don't like sideloading, BTW). 

I do like my nook, I really do.  But I wish it had better selection of books.

I completley agree.  A lot of the free Google books can be found numerous places online.  Amazon has as of today 495,899 ebooks.  Barnes and Noble has (including Google books) 1,079,368.  At this rate, B&N isn't really gaining on Amazon as far as numbers go.  Amazon is growing at a rate that is very close to B&N.  Then again, selection doesn't matter if they don't have the books you want or you don't like the device you are reading on.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

icebike wrote:

Go to the Kindle store.  They advertise more the 450,000 ebooks.

Go to the B&N Ebook page.  They Advertise over 1 million ebook titles.

B&N's claiming Google Books' sludgepile of poorly-scanned public-domain writings in the count is kind of lame. I believe that Amazon now provides access to that same sludgepile, but they don't have the gall to count them as part of their catalogue.

B&N currently shows 32,345 titles under 'All fiction e-books" and 13,511 titles under 'All non-fiction e-books'. That comes to, um, not even 50,000 titles.

In contrast, Amazon shows 175,266 fiction titles and 296,252 non-fiction titles for Kindle. That's over their claimed 450,000 titles, and about 10 times as many as B&N.

B&N probably can catch up with Amazon on fiction, especially current fiction, if they really work at it. And they definitely should work at it; that's what we hear the most whining about on these boards. But B&N has never been big on non-fiction, and Amazon's lead there is gigantic. I don't see that gap closing any time soon.

[icebike]

So its your position, Doug, that B&N is simply lying when they state:

  eBooks for Everyone - Over 1 Million Titles!

Is that your claim?  You will be filing a truth in advertising action against B&N then I presume?

Or is it that since you only read current fiction, cutting yourself off from the great masters, that you can simply discount anything non-current, or anything you don't like till the numbers match your preconceived notions of who has more ebooks?

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

DRW53OH wrote:

I'm not sure where anyone got the idea that I don't like sideloading

From this line: "I can buy it from Sony and convert it via Adobe Digital Editions, but I'd rather just download it from BN."

DRW53OH wrote:

I do like my nook, I really do.  But I wish it had better selection of books.

The selection is there; use InkMesh or AddALL to search for the dealers that have what you want. Sony's a good bet for the very latest stuff. You're not going to get a wide selection at B&N, and you never were.

There will still be some titles that Amazon has an edge on. They're able to get some concessions from publishers that nobody else can (for example, the current Penguin situation). And for titles from the non-Agency publishers, Amazon will probably continue to have loss-leaders with prices significantly below what we nook owners can find. We'll have to wait to see if Fictionwise once again becomes the nook owner's boon that it was.

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

@icebike: I'm just saying that Amazon doesn't count the public-domain books you can get through them, while B&N does. That means that you can't compare the numbers.

[icebike]

And I'm saying they DO count them in their 450,000 titles, and they only carry 19,992 free classic ebooks.  

They refer you to Internet Archive, Gutenberg and Manybooks if you want more than those 19k free titles that they carry.

They even hedge their claim of largest selection with these words:

   "Kindle Store contains the largest selection of the books people want to read."

So no matter how you cut it, Amazon has FAR fewer (less than half) ebooks than B&N.

[Foot]

A guy I work with is selling his barley used Kindle II for $175 and they have recently sold of eBay for as little as $135. The nook is selling for a much higher price used. Sell it and you will come out of the deal with a little pocket change.

If you don't like the nook any longer, simply get rid of it. Good luck!

[FrogAlum]

Foot wrote:

A guy I work with is selling his barley used Kindle II for $175 and they have recently sold of eBay for as little as $135. The nook is selling for a much higher price used. Sell it and you will come out of the deal with a little pocket change.

If you don't like the nook any longer, simply get rid of it. Good luck!

Is this for Kindle Barley Soup? 

[Nallia Distinguished Bibliophile]

Being able to download straight to my nook is great, I don't deny it.  I love it and prefer it.  I also love browsing through the books B&N online store by their covers.  It makes me feel more like I'm shopping for books.

That said, I am happy as long as I can find the books I want to read someplace.  If that means I have to sideload them, so be it.  I'll even buy paper books that aren't available anywhere in ebook if I have to, but I prefer to reserve those purchases for books that are very important to me--books that I want to keep forever and don't want to risk ever losing or being unable to read, or books that are part of a series that I already own in paper.  For most purchases, I prefer ebooks now.

I would really love it if B&N would consolidate the library so everything was in one place, though.

[Large_Marge]

Doug_Pardee wrote:

@icebike: I'm just saying that Amazon doesn't count the public-domain books you can get through them, while B&N does. That means that you can't compare the numbers.

I think the difference is that Google books are included in search results for B&N, but the "sludgepile of poorly-typed public-domain writings" at Gutenburg are not included in Amazon searches, hence not "in-store."

[icebike]

Large_Marge wrote:

Doug_Pardee wrote:

@icebike: I'm just saying that Amazon doesn't count the public-domain books you can get through them, while B&N does. That means that you can't compare the numbers.

I think the difference is that Google books are included in search results for B&N, but the "sludgepile of poorly-typed public-domain writings" at Gutenburg are not included in Amazon searches, hence not "in-store."

Actually Gutenberg books are a LOT cleaner than Google scans because they are looked at by humans.  They both start with scans these days.  Gutenberg gave up on the typing.

But in any event, no, Amazon officially states they only include about 20 thousand public domain free books, (from a variety of sources) and they refer you to Gutenberg (etc) for sideloading if you want anything even slightly out of the mainstream. 

The google scans are also getting better, but you have to occasionally download a couple different versions of the same book to find one that is readable.  They scan the same book from multiple libraries, and you see duplicate listings.  I've found some that were very very clean, with just a typo here and there, and none of the give-up-and-embed-the-image stuff.  Others are a total mess.  

Still I found a reference to my Grandfather in a google scan of old University documents.  (he was an obscure guy at best).