ibooks store is only free books - all ancient classics

ralfel wrote:
What is the problem here?

Here in India too the problem is the identical. The iBooks store only let's you purchase (without paying anything) and download really ancient publications which are free of any copyrights. Nothing that is more contemporary.

The same is the problem when you try to purchase music on the iTunes music store. I first thout it ws something to do with some financial regulations imposed by the Indian Government; however, I reasised soon thwt tht was not the case at all. It is something wierd with the stores.

The most ironical thing is that you can purchase Apps on the AppStore and pay for them using your Credit Card with an address in India.

I know that if the address is faked, the paid content on both iTunes and iBooks open up. (I have seen someone do this.)

Here is what I could infer: You need to have an address in the UK, the US, or some other locations that apple has qualified to be countries from where you can purchase paid content to shop for music and books on iTunes and iBooks. Although younger not permitted to pay and download books nd music, you may pay and download software without any restrictions. This is really weird.

Additionally, please note - People I know who use the Kindle (device) can pay and download just about any content without any restrictions whatsoever.

Ajit

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ralfel wrote:
I can access the ibook site on my ipad, but all it displays is free books - mostly ancient classics.

How do I get books with a price? New books! I have an itunes account, as I have purchased many apps, so they must know who I am and who to send the bill to.

What is the problem here?

Message was edited by: ralfel

Apple can only sell what they are licensed to sell - if the publishers/copyrightholders havn't given them permission to sell recent/current books in the Netherlands then they can't sell them. Here in the UK there is a bigger range on Amazon/Kindle anyway.

Previosuly both the ibooks and the itunes music store in india used to have only free content. Now the itunes store has paid content as well. I think its either to do with the publication rights in those countries, or, they are still working on the prices reasonable for those countries. For example, music in india as as cheap as 15 rs a track, sometimes even 12 or 9 rupees! Thats less than 20cents a track!

I have downloaded the Kindle ap onto my IPhone. It allows you to purchase books through Kindle(amazon). I have found this an excelent alternative.

Apple publishes some info on what's available where:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3599

My Problem is that I live in Indonesia and just bought the iPad to easily obtain and read Books a couple of weeks ago.

First the iBook Store does not contain Paid Books and then I found out that Kindle and Nook are not available in the Indonesian App Store. So all the three major paid content eReader apps are unavailable for me.

This is frustating, should I create a new Apple ID with a Fake Address? But would I be able to copy the content to my iPad as I am logged in as another user?

Part of the problem with the ibookstore is that it is a pain to set up with. So many smaller publishers don't have accounts with them yet.

On major publishing houses, the agency pricing and their own limiting of liscences is the issue. Due to a legacy system in place many of the big houses have different contracts going in different countries for authors. The big houses have not been able to adapt the systems yet to the more global distribution network.

The big publishing houses are being drawn into this new era kicking and screaming that they don't want to go!

Amy

Actually, Amazon is super easy to set up with. Their own KDP (Kindle Direct Pubilshing) makes it wonderfully easy to self publish and for smaller publishing houses. They have worked out agreements with the major publishing houses, the big houses actually started Agency pricing because of Amazon. Amazon was discounting their ebooks and selling them at little to no profit and sometimes even a loss. Amazon is are more focused on their ebook sales.

The major publishers are still having issues releasing their ebooks in a reasonable amount of time and at a reasonable price. This is a problem across all the ebook selling sites, not just the ibookstore. It still is not as easy as it should be to get any new book released that you want in ebook. As I said legacy contracts are part of the problem and in general the fact that the big publishing houses do NOT want to make these changes. They are big and bulky and are having trouble changing and updating.

Geo-restrictions are annoying are set by the publisher, not Amazon or Apple. Contracts are why some stuff is available worldwide and some stuff is not. Now why they think Geo-restrictions matter on digital goods? I have no clue, personally I don't care where you live if you want to buy one of my books I will sell it to you! Again its contracts (and sometimes just ignorance on how to set stuff up) as to why stuff is not being sold to all markets.

To me it feels like the ibookstore was an add-on by Apple that they HAD to do, and only put the bare minimum of work into it. I am really not joking when I say its a pain to set up with them.

Amy