E-book publisher Fictionwise opened a new, mobile-friendly version of one of its online bookstores today at the address m.ereader.com (tip o’ the cap to jkOnTheRun). It’s certainly a step in the right direction, especially for people reading e-books on their iPhone or iPod Touch. But it’s another piece of Fictionwise’s confusing and, at times, not very consumer-friendly e-book ecosystem. As Microsoft learned the hard way in the digital music realm, sometimes a simpler, more unified model beats one that ostensibly offers more variety and consumer “choice.” In this case, Amazon’s Kindle has Fictionwise beat by a mile for the book buying experience in terms of ease of use, selection and pricing.
Fictionwise was one of the first to distribute an e-reader program that works on new iPhones and iPods Touch, as I mentioned last month. One complication is that you can’t actually buy e-books from within the app. Instead, you have to jump from e-reader to a browser and surf to one of the Fictionwise-compatible web sites. Buy an e-book at the web site, return to the e-reader app and download the e-book there. Simple? Not exactly. But the new mobile-friendly web site greatly eases the task of buying new e-books directly from the browser on your iPhone or iPod. The old site, intended for viewing on much larger computer screens, required an awful lot of finger squeezing to navigate around and increase the font size. The new site is properly sized to be viewed on a tiny screen without any need for finger manipulation.
The e-reader itself, now at version 1.1, is a pretty good app. You can change fonts and font size, search for any words in the book you’re reading and turn pages with a simple finger flick. You also get the iPod/iPhone backlighting so you can read in bright sunlight or a darkened bedroom. On the downside, you can’t search for words across several books, highlight passages or take notes. And the biggest downside of all — the app simply eats battery life. Fictionwise claims 6 to 8 hours battery life if you turn the brightness down but I’m a pretty fast reader and I have not been able to read a whole book without recharging my fairly new iPod Touch at least once. I get about 3 hours of reading on a charge. This is in stark contrast to Kindle, which lasts for days and days on a single charge (and even longer than that if you turn off the wireless while you’re reading).
We could also argue about which is easier and more comfortable to hold in the hand for long periods while reading. I prefer the Kindle, which has a larger screen, more area to grip and seems more book like. Others may prefer the more compact dimensions of an iPhone/iPod. The Kindle also flickers for a second when you turn a page, while the e-reader app offers a smoother transition.
But the Kindle runs circles around Fictionwise when it comes to finding and buying e-books. The Kindle connects directly to Amazon’s e-book store, where the selection is immense and prices are dirt cheap, especially for new hardcovers. You can read reviews and see star ratings from other Amazon readers right from the Kindle. A free sample of the first chapter or two is available for every book. And after you click to buy, the book is available a few seconds later. No jumping back and forth between apps.
By contrast, Fictionwise runs or supports a variety of different e-book stores, with different policies, technologies and sign-in accounts. The company protects e-books you buy at its eReader site, including the new mobile site unveiled today, with its own DRM that is only compatible with its e-reader software. Thankfully, the program is available on many platforms including Windows, Mac OS X and now iPhone/iPod. But the company doesn’t make its own hardware and you can’t read books bought at the eReader store on a Kindle, Sony or other proprietary e-book devices. And there are no reader reviews or free first chapters, needless to say.
The confusion starts when you go to other Fictionwise sites, like its main bookstore at Fictionwise.com. Some of the books there are described as “multi-format” and don’t appear to be locked by DRM. They can be purchased in a dozen formats, including ones compatible with the Kindle and the Sony e-reader. But other books are sold in a so-called secure format. You have to choose from among one of four secure formats. There’s e-reader, for the company’s own software platform along with ones for DRMs produced by Adobe, Microsoft and Mobipocket (which, ironically enough, is a company owned by Amazon now). I may be wrong but it seems like you have to choose one of these four secured formats when you buy an e-book and that’s all you get per purchase. And it seems like some books aren’t available in every format.
This is reminiscent of the bad old days of digital music before Apple created a dramatically simplified customer experience with its iTunes music store. Remember when only some music files could be burned to a CD and some could be burned five times but others could be burned seven times? Messy and confusing.
It might be okay if all this confusion and “choice” resulted in a huge selection of e-books or amazingly low prices. Sadly, Amazon has Fictionwise beat on selection and price. Take a popular book that’s available in both stores. Want to read the final book in Stephenie Meyer’s vampire saga, Breaking Dawn? On Kindle, it’s $9.99. It’s $17.24 at eReader (with 10% off if you enter a code from the site’s weekly newsletter).
At Fictionwise itself, Meyer’s book is $22.99 with a “rebate” of 50% bringing the price down to $11.49. The “rebate” goes into an account that can only be used to buy more e-books on the site, so it’s not a true rebate. If you belong to Fictionwise’s book club for $29.95 a year, the price starts at $19.54 and drops to $9.77 after the “rebate.” Following all this insanity? Newsletter secret codes that change weekly, rebates that can only be used at the same web site and a costly club memberships for further discounts. Ugh.
But that’s only when both sites have the book you want. Amazon’s Kindle store is up around 160,000 items versus about 54,000 that show up at Fictionwise and about 38,000 at ereader.com.
Overall, Fictionwise has a long way to go to catch Kindle. The new mobile site is good first step.
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