Here is a non-exhaustive list
of digital booksellers. For more sellers,
kindly consult Google.
play.google.com
It is wise to window shop before
committing to a purchase.
Of these, Google Play offers
the best prices (most of the time). It
also depends on the format you prefer.
Most books for sale at Google Play are in ePub (electronic publication) format;
a number in PDF (portable document format) – comic books usually are downloadable
as PDFs. ePubs are usually cheaper than
PDFs.
Life with Kevin
#3 will be released on 28 December 2016 at Google Play and will be downloadable
as ePub and PDF. Life with Kevin is a comic book mini-series that appears only in
digital format, i.e., no print copies as of yet. It is about Kevin Keller, the first openly
gay man in the Archie Comics universe.
A number of techies point out
that PDF is not a digital book.
Regardless, PDF is my favorite format because it looks exactly like the
print copy.
Lulu does not look like a
secure Web site. I do not see the “s” in
“http” consistently in the address bar.
It is probably secure the moment one makes her/his purchase. The same goes for eBooks. I have not purchased anything from Lulu and
eBooks, so far, because of this.
I like window shopping at
eBooks because it sells PDFs of books I like.
However, eBooks tenders astronomic prices. In fairness to eBooks, their selling prices are
the actual selling retail prices of publishers.
Many publishers sell books with a standard price for both digital and
print copies.
The Superhero Reader (in PDF) is sold for only ₱928.41 at Google Play, while it is sold for $30 at
eBooks. The price at Google Play may or
may not have a transaction charge and/or foreign currency conversion fee,
depending on the bank that issued your credit/debit card regardless of the credit
card brand or type, e.g., American Express, Visa, etc.
Bank of the Philippine
Islands (BPI) More Fun prepaid Visa charges ₱60 initially
for each book bought from Google Play but will return the ₱60 within a few minutes from purchase; hence, BPI
essentially charges nothing above Google Play’s tag price. The price at eBooks is in US dollars, so this
will certainly incur a foreign currency conversion charge if your credit card
is issued by a Philippine bank. Also,
foreign exchange rates change daily, so $30 is not fixed in Philippine
pesos. Prices at Google Play are fixed
and not affected by foreign exchange rates.
eBooks has “This edition is
not for sale in your country” books. If
you check Google Play, you will find the same book available for sale for a
much lower price.
Kobo also sells books in
Philippine pesos. Google Play, Kobo and
many other Web sites – not just ebook sellers – automatically detect the country
a Net surfer comes from, so they convert prices to the country’s currency. Most books in Kobo are ePub, so Kobo is not
for me generally. I do buy ePubs,
especially ones with thousands of pages but cost less than a hundred pesos
(around $2; some sold for less than $1).
Google Play has lots of cheap ePubs.
Romance novels, from any ebook seller, tend to be cheap ePubs and have
very enticing covers.
If you want to collect the
photos from these titillating covers, get the ones from Smashwords. Google Play photos are small. Smashwords photos are quite large that they
more than fill a computer screen.
Smashwords and Lulu sell
not-so-popular and self-published books.
Do not be surprised if you stumble across someone you know selling or
promoting a book in these sites.
Some digital books are
available only at Amazon which has its own format (Kindle). The print copy of The Superhero Reader is sold for $30 at Amazon (plus shipping and
handling), while the Kindle Edition is sold for $17.49.
Textbooks.com is a
marketplace – sells its own books and has other sellers on site – like Amazon
and, like Amazon, has its own app for reading ebooks. Textbooks.com does not show the padlock icon
on the address bar while browsing, so I am not certain of the site’s
security. I expect it becomes secure the
moment one finalizes the purchase.
Some of the books from Google
Play and other digital booksellers are DRM-protected. Digital Rights Management (DRM) prevents
transfer of ebooks from one device to another and/or reading of ebooks from one
software to another in the same device (an Adobe Digital Editions ebook can
only be read with Adobe Digital Editions and will not open in Adobe Acrobat
Reader, Sumatra, etc.), supposedly to curtail copyright infringement.
I am of the belief that I own
the book that I paid for; hence, I remove the DRM (with the help of a software)
of books that I purchased. If I feel I (or
if I fear my friendly software) can not remove the DRM of an ebook for sale,
then there is no reason for me to buy that ebook.
Free, legitimate DRM removal
apps are available in cyberspace.
Consult our friendly neighbor Google.
I am not a techie so I rely
on a software to remove DRMs. A number
of sites teach how to remove DRMs manually (still with the help of a free
software).
Paid DRM removal apps are not
very expensive. Do check for license
expiry. A lifetime license that comes
with free updates may be worth it in the long run.
