Aussie Readers discussion

Repeat after me: Amazon are nice people, Amazon are nice people, Amazon are nice people, Amazon are...

Great link Jacqueline.

Amazon are nice people,Amazon are nice people,Amazon are nice people,Amazon are...

Ummmm, I'm not sure that they are. I'm a bit peeved by their policy of charging freight on every single item they send you. Would it have killed them to freight everything in one package?

Love the US exchange rate at the moment.

I'm a bit peeved by their policy of charging freig..."

Really? In the US if our order totals over $25 it ships free. And if they can get the items to us more quickly they'll ship them separately to do so (I presume this is when the items come from different warehouses.)

Ouch - I feel for you, gang.

I've actually had Amazon send me replacement DVDs without seeing the damaged item. Their service has been exceptional in every dealing I've had with them. Of course, I haven't had any dealings with them for ebooks and I won't until they improve their policies.

Amazon were nice people, Amazon were nice people, Amazon were nice people, Amazon were...

This isn't about Amazon per se but I often order books that are out of print from the hundreds of secondhand booksellers listed with Amazon. One book arrived (looking well-loved with yellowed pages and dog-eared cover) and clipped to it was a USD $5 bill. An attached note from the shop owner said she was so excited to receive an order all the way from Australia that she didn't want to charge me postage. On the note she had written in spidery 'little-old-lady' writing, 'Good Luck'! I keep that note in my wallet all the time. For some weirdly superstitious reason I feel it does bring me good luck. How's that for service!:)


P.S. Polk I hope it comes soon! Maybe in the meantime you can put a paper book inside the ereader cover and just pretend!;D

Polk wrote: "I received an Amazon package today. Excited, I ripped it open. It's the Kindle case. Grr. I just checked the tracking number and the actual Kindle hasn't even left the US yet. Grr again. "

Don't worry Polk. It shouldn't be too far away. I ordered mine on th 17th it arrived yesterday. (I should offer mine to you as I am not allowed to have it until next week.) :(

Mandy wrote: "This isn't about Amazon per se but I often order books that are out of print from the hundreds of secondhand booksellers listed with Amazon...."

I love the second hand books that arrive from Amazon.com, I don't think I've ever ordered a new one from them. They often come with peoples scribblings in them. I love that. Your $5 story is gorgeous. (though you can't thank Amazon for that...)

I am shocked. I ordered something from Amazon USA (not a book but cross-country ski boots and bindings). They made a big fuss about me being a foreigner, and they could not send overseas etc etc, but I had them sent the items to a forwarding agent in the USA - no problem but expensive.

They asked for feedback afterwards, so I whinged about foreigners being treated like lepers. (I know you lot - you make your women wear burkas, eat dogs and explode at the drop of a baked bean).

This morning - and I still find this hard to believe - got an email which included the following :-
If you would be willing to remove your negative feedback for both stores I would be more than happy to refund you shipping costs of $9.95 for both order. This would be a total refund of $19.90

I may be cheap, but I'm not cooperating with this one.

Good on you Jacqueline. I'll send you the $19.90, then you won't feel tempted. :)

Amazon aren't nice people, Amazon aren't nice people, Amazon aren't nice people, Amazon aren't ...

No, Gail, hang onto the $20 and we'll share an Italian next time you're up here. Soon, I hope.

No worries. I'll put it on my to-do list. :)

Jacqueline wrote: "No, Gail, hang onto the $20 and we'll share an Italian next time you're up here. Soon, I hope."

I'm sure you won't have to pay the Italian to share himself between two women...

Murray wrote: "I'm sure you won't have to pay the Italian to share himself between two women..."

LOL!

Jeez - what sort of Italian do you associate with?

Obviously Jacqueline, you and I are happy with the cheap ones. :)

Jacqueline wrote: "Jeez - what sort of Italian do you associate with?"

The kind that believes he'll offend any woman he doesn't make a pass at...

Actually, the Italians I associate with most these days are 17yo female exchange students - which means I have to try to close my ears when they start talking about Bikini Parties.

I hate to defend Amazon at the moment, but their refusing to ship outside the US may be a manufacturer requirement - like regions on DVDs.

Mandy wrote: "Maybe in the meantime you can put a paper book inside the ereader cover and just pretend!"
Lol, I have my e-reader in a leather cover that looks like a book, and my housemate asked me the other day why I was reading a book with just one page! :)

Murray wrote: "I hate to defend Amazon at the moment, but their refusing to ship outside the US may be a manufacturer requirement - like regions on DVDs."

For European ski boots and bindings? No, it's just laziness.

Sass wrote: "Lol, I have my e-reader in a leather cover that looks like a book, and my housemate asked me the other day why I was reading a book with just one page! :) "

*lol* Did you reply, "It's avant-garde, darling." ?

Jacqueline wrote: "For European ski boots and bindings? No, it's just laziness. "

That's not quite what I meant. The European manufacturer may have European prices and US prices and Australian prices and ... Then they want to make sure you in Australia can't buy cheaply from the US, so they make Amazon agree to only sell in the US.

We've all had Amazon ship outside the US on other products, so it's unlikely this is just laziness. I'm not saying that I agree with it, but I think it's probably the manufacturer's fault.

Sass wrote: "Mandy wrote: "Maybe in the meantime you can put a paper book inside the ereader cover and just pretend!"
Lol, I have my e-reader in a leather cover that looks like a book, and my housemate asked ..."

LOL! I have one of those leather covers with the little light and another crazy coloured padded lycra one. They have a great selection of covers these days don't they.:)

Naomi wrote:*lol* Did you reply, "It's avant-garde, darling." ? "

Lol, nah I would have had to explain it to him. Bad enough that he had never heard of an ereader before :)

Hi everyone, I just got the new Sony Reader 2 weeks back and am LOVING IT! I wanted to get a Kindle, but somehow I wasn't so sure about the whole business of ordering and getting it shipped all the way from the US. I know I'm a fairly conventional gal, it took me really long to switch, but when I spotted the Sony Reader at my local Borders, I was instantly charmed and went home with a unit!

I have the PRS-650 Touch Edition, battery life is amazing everything worked fantastic up until the point I tried to listen to music and read at the same time! At first my screen froze, which put me in a state of momentary panic, then after carefully reading the manual and looking up for some tips, I managed to reset it without losing any data (my precious notes!). It worked okay afterwards but every now and then when I try the two functions at the same time, it would reboot itself a few times first before allowing me to use the function (mildly annoying).

Nevertheless, I still LOVE my Sony Reader, mainly for its intuitive note taking abilities (touch screen and stylus, awesome) and the expandable storage. I wouldn't put too many books on the external memory cards though, I find that it slows it down a little. And I am a monogamist, LOL, as in I stick to one book at a time when it comes to fiction reading.

Polk wrote: "We can criticise Amazon for its propriety file format and seemingly backward approach to the innovative technology, but where the issue really lies is with the publishers because they are the ones ..."

I just wanted to say that you comments are absolutely spot on! I hated the fact that I can't get certain titles and that the price is so inconsistent. I checked the other day and was dismayed to see the price of one of the titles I recently purchased just got down by a few dollars... in terms of ebooks, one or two dollars do matter! And yes, don't we all despise DRM! I am still figuring out how to crack it for my personal use...

I've just been given a Kogan e-reader. Starting problems: it wouldn't work till I'd turned it off and on twice, then it was excellent. Great screen, clear font. Only criticism is that the page-turning/up-down buttons are halfway up the left-hand side of the device; not a comfortable position. The other problem -- common to many e-book readers, I'm told -- is that I needed a higher powered USB port (actually used a USB hub) before I could download e-books. With the puter's regular USB port, the Koogan recognised the puter but not vice versa. Other than that, it's pretty good. No bells and whistles; it's a reader pure and simple.

Never heard of the Kogan. Does it come in colour, Meredith?

I bought a Kindle a couple weeks ago and I have to say, I'm loving it so far! I've stocked it with mostly the freebies and eGalleys but I have paid for a couple of things. I'm kind of on the fence about Amazon as I can really only comment on how they treated me personally and I have to say, their service was fantastic. I pre-ordered the Kindle when it was out of stock and it arrived before their estimation and the shipping was cheap and pretty fast considering the distance. I'm still waiting for the cover I ordered but that's made by someone else other than Amazon and isn't in stock yet so it's out of their control. As for the reader itself, I'm finding it very nice to read on. It's light, easy to hold and easy on the eyes.

And yes - LOVING the exchange rate right now! My $189US Kindle cost me about $196AU

My 3G still doesn't work so I am a bit peeved off with Amazon at the moment. They seem to have washed their hands of my problem.

Oh I haven't actually tried my 3G as we have a wireless network here at home...Probably should check that out!

I would suggest you do. You did pay an extra $50 for it.

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "My 3G still doesn't work so I am a bit peeved off with Amazon at the moment. They seem to have washed their hands of my problem."

Poor Gail!:(

Gail "cyborg" wrote: "My 3G still doesn't work so I am a bit peeved off with Amazon at the moment. They seem to have washed their hands of my problem."

Gail, is it an Amazon problem? I see that Amazon promise coverage in Australia, but surely you have to have an account for it with Telstra (eg) first or it won't have anything to connect to. Have you set that up? Am I entirely off track?

Yes it is an Amazon problem. The Kindle comes with free 3G, you don't need to have an account, they have an agreement with Vodaphone. It should pick up automatically but doesn't. I have been in communications with them for a few weeks now. I haven't heard from them since Thursday. The last I heard they were looking into the problem and will get back to me... it has been very frustrating I have been avoiding complaining in here as I have been trying to give them a chance to sort the problem out.

Ok I just switched the wireless off on mine and it's not connecting to anything either!

There is something you can try, to try and force it to work (which still didn't work for me).

If I can find the instructions I'll send them to you.

Thanks! God knows how long it would've taken me to notice this if you hadn't posted about it.

Bree these are the instructions. (note to type in 311 you need to hold alt then type e-q-q )

You may be able to successfully connect to Whispernet by changing the default wireless provider for your Kindle.

Visit your Kindle's Settings screen by selecting that option from the Home screen menu. When you're on the Settings screen, type 311 on Kindle's keyboard.

When prompted to switch wireless providers, select "OK" to see a list of providers in your area. Please allow up to two minutes for Kindle to complete a search of available wireless providers.

Select a carrier from the list and wait for Kindle to return to the Setting screen and attempt to connect to Whispernet. If after two minutes you are still unable to connect or your signal strength does not improve, please repeat the steps above and select a different carrier from the list.

If you have repeatedly tried to switch carriers and you are still unable to connect to the Whispernet, please call us so we can try some real-time troubleshooting. You can reach us internationally by dialing 1-206-266-0927. If you do need to call us, please have your Kindle fully charged and connected to the charger when you call.

Hi Gail,
There's a Kindle Australia discussion over at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/tag/kindle/foru...

You should post your problems there and see if you get any feedback. I didn't read all the msgs but one of them said: I've found (on the Gold Coast) that you need to select 3Telstra3G, not Telstra, 3G to get a connection on my K3 wifi/3G. Funny, cause my older K2i was the exact opposite. I don't know if that means anything to you.

EDIT: Yes there seems to be several people discussing issues with connection to 3G and possible solutions particularly in the last few msgs.

Thanks Mandy. I've tried them all nothing works.

Gail, it doesn't seem to have worked for me either. It brings up a pretty big list to choose from but no matter what I choose, it doesn't work

Gail sounds like you've been very patient with them. That's the drawback when buying an overseas item is the service. I know it's a total last resort and would cost you more money but have you thought of paying one of those 'dial a geek' type guys to come out and see what they can do? Although it's such new technology you can't be sure they've been exposed to it either.

Is yours working Mandy? I had my office IT guy look at it. He thinks there is something wrong with the sim card.

I've never had a problem with my wireless connection. It's just gone like a trooper since I got it. I feel awful for you that yours isn't working properly!:(

Article in today's Australian Newspaper:

Adapt or perish, bookstores told

KATE Eltham states emphatically what independent booksellers have been saying for some time.
It's urgent for bookstores to "adapt, leverage digital media, and cultivate strong community interest around them".

Eltham runs the Queensland Writers Centre, also home to the Institute for the Future of the Book in Australia. It recently hosted American e-book distributor Mark Coker, who suggested publishers are ceding that power to authors.

Coker calls this "the age of true democratisation of publishing". Coker finishes his Australian tour in Perth on Monday at 9.30am, with a talk at the State Library of WA.

I am trying to get my head around bookshops selling ebooks. How would that work?

Jacqueline wrote: "I am trying to get my head around bookshops selling ebooks. How would that work?"

I'm not really sure what she means by this comment either: "adapt, leverage digital media, and cultivate strong community interest around them".

'Leverage digital media' for some reason reminds me of the way the huge new releases are sometimes only released as ebook 3-4 weeks after the hardcover comes out to force people to buy a paper version. This is one of the ways publishers are trying to control ebook sales.

Self publishing seems to be getting bigger all the time. It's great in lots of ways but it must be hard for the authors to do all the marketing.

Plus I find lately that book blurbs on self published books are not as catchy. I think it's difficult for an author to reduce their book (baby!) down to one paragraph. I start to read the synopsis and think yeah that sounds good, then it keeps going and going and I lose interest again. (Sorry - short attention span here!) That's where professional marketing was good for the author.

Kiosks, I would imagine. Also, consumers who don't want to use credit cards online may prefer to shop in store. The shop could have print copies of bestsellers and new releases for readers to browse through. One of my biggest complaints about ebooks is that it's almost impossible to browse through the end of the book -- which is how I select non-romance fiction.

I believe that most (all?) readers like the book shop experience. The question is - will they pay for it?

Will they go to an old fashioned specialist shop to buy their vegetables, or pick them up in the supermarket as they pass. We already know the answer to that one - a dominant majority of vegetables are bought in supermarkets, even by people who would prefer to use farmers markets or specialist shops.

Will books go the same way? Inevitably yes, I'm afraid. The only difference is that books can be bought on-line, hard copy or as ebooks.

The question exercising the publishers now is - how do they select a limited number of titles to be bestsellers and promote them without bookshops? How do they build up their favoured authors' reputations and dominate the market.

And if they choose to promote online, how do they differentiate their product from the tens of thousands of modern books released by small publishers and authors?

Answer that and the book trade will be wearing out your front lawn.

I don't think we can assume that most readers like the bookshop experience. I think a growing number are quite happy to shop online, and some prefer the convenience and anonymity.

My feeling is that the discussion around bookshops is for the benefit of bookshops rather than publishers. It must be of great concern, especially to the smaller independent book retailers, how to position themselves in a market where ebooks and online shopping look set to become the norm.