If you’re a fan of reading then you’re probably all up in the eBook space and always on the look out for the next best place to get a great deal, especially if you go though books at the speed at which I do, now Big W has just announced that they’re selling eBooks.
You’ll need to sign up to two places in order to get access to Big W books, firstly you’ll need an account with Big W/Woolworths, my Everyday Rewards account apparently is all I need to begin purchasing, otherwise you’ll be prompted to join up. The next part is where it gets tricky, once you’ve purchased the book through the BigW website you’ll need to have access to an Adobe ID account; so you’ll need to sign up for an account at Adobe.
The books on-sale are ePubs and Big W advise that they can be read almost anywhere – Computers, Tablet and even Phones – for PC access you’ll need Adobe Digital Editions. For Android you have a much larger range of choices, the Big W recommendation is for Overdrive Media Console but you can essentially use any eBook reader that supports Adobe ID – Aldiko being my personal favourite.
Now, the experience of actually using Big W eBooks is bad, really bad. Purchasing a book is easy, getting that book to your device is hard, on completion of your sale, you’re given a download link – you would think this would be the epub file…you’re wrong, it’s a file called download.acsm you’ll need to get this file to your device and open it to prompt your ebook reader of choice to download the book. Even with the recommended reader Overdrive installed, and authorised as an Adobe device, it’s still yet to allow me to open the file. Fortunately Aldiko made this quite easy once I emailed myself the file.
Attempting to login to the Big W site on my mobile to get to the My Library section was a bad experience in itself, the login screen flat out refused to load on both mobile and Wi-Fi connections.
I did a search of the top 5 books from the SMH Top 10 books and found these comparisons on Google Play Books, Amazon, JB Hifi Books and of course Big W :
| Google Play Books | Amazon Kindle | JB Hifi Books | Big W | |
| Inferno – Dan Brown | $14.99 | $13.39 | N/A | $12.99 |
| Mrs Queen Takes the Train – William Kuhn | $15.80 | $14.99 | $19.49 | $29.99 |
| Wool – Hugh Howey | $8.99 | $8.44 | N/A | N/A |
| Museum of Thieves: The Keepers 1 – Lian Tanner | $8.99 | N/A(Hardcover was available but not Kindle) | $10.39 | N/A |
| The Golden Land – Di Morrissey | $11.99 | $11.05 | $11.99 | N/A |
Overall, I`m going to stick with Google Play Books, the interface, ease of use, ability to upload my own ePub and PDF files and overall experience is MUCH better. Amazon could and has previously won my business and that is probably your best option if Google Play doesn’t float your boat or you have a Kindle eBook reader. In the end, while Big W offered a cheaper book once, it does not warrant changing to this frustrating mess of an eBook store I won’t be coming back, but you’re welcome to try.
Where do you purchase your ebooks from?
I buy my books from Amazon and the use ePubor Ultimate (http://www.epubor.com/ultimate.html) to strip the DRM. A quick run through Calibre converts to ePub which is then stashed on my Drobo and On Google Drive for insurance… Not strictly legit I know – but I DO buy the books and I DON’T give out the DRM free files.
I never thought I was a crim, but the drm restrictions on the first one I bought made me feel like I was a parolee. I could only read it on n number of authenticated devices, with specific applications connected to the internet and couldn’t even print. Years down the track, I can’t even remember what book it was, who I bought it from or if the drm service even exists anymore. So while I paid for it, it’s long gone, unlike the ones in my book shelf. You don’t buy an ebook, you buy a license to read an… Read more »
Can’t understand why DRM is used here. After all I an but a physical book and lend it to a friend. Why restrict the digital version
Because as far as the physical book publisher is concerned ALL eBook purchasers are thieving, copyright infriging, criminal scum, who cannot ever be trusted, so the connedtent has to be locked down hard to prevent its easy copy and distribution.
Where there is well there’s a way. I could if inclined but the paperback, scan, PDF and put on the Internet.
I understand your comments. I believe publishers are misguided. In fact I believe DRMing these items ( as well as geo-pricing, overcharging etc) actually entices people to the behaviors they are trying to avoid
The big difference is your not likely to go to your nearest photocopier and copy a paperback, but an ePub file without DRM is just to easy to copy! Not so much lend to a mate but give away free copies at will!
Um DRM, incompatible with many ereaders including play books from memory. I’ll keep buying from google thanks.
Woolworthless eBooks, poor range and the Australia Tax being slapped on eBooks. How to influence people and create career copyright infringers.
Woolworthless, you fail.
Oh Jeni everything fails for you. Is anything any good ?