Barnes and Noble Made Me Sad
Posted on March 3, 2010I was just sitting down to use my Nook, the eBook reader from Barnes and Noble. Yeah, that thing that’s kinda like a Kindle. No, it isn’t all a touch-screen, just the bottom bit. Anyway, I was excited to find the latest Gene Wolfe book The Sorcerer’s House that someone had reviewed over at Tor.com. I pull up the Barnes and Noble store on my Nook, search for Gene Wolfe, and there it is! The price was a bit steep, $17.95, but after the recent row about eBook pricing being unfairly set by Amazon, I wasn’t going to mind paying a little more than usual. Its still cheaper than buying it in hardcover, and since I’m trying to downsize my library anyway, eBooks are more effective anyway.
I purchase the book with minimal effort and put the Nook down to wait while it presumable does its downloading magic. When I pick it back up, I notice that the book has still not downloaded, but rather I’m sitting at a screen describing the book, something like the back of the jacket copy. Ok, no worries, I think I’ve seen this button on here to download new content. I find that, press download, and resume my wait.
After a few minutes, I pick my Nook back up and discover a message indicating that this book has not yet been released!! This is the first mention of this on my Nook during the entire purchasing process, something that has previously kept me from purchasing a book online, print or electronic. If its not yet out, I won’t benefit by ordering it ahead of time, regardless of whether or not they charge my account for it yet. It might be on sale at another vendor when released for a better price, so why not just wait to see? I’m also not that worried about it being out-of-stock as, well, I don’t think that’s possible for eBooks!
So now, sad faces all around, as I have no new Gene Wolfe book to read tonight. I did succumb to purchasing The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency for $1.99, however, which I had been considering checking out. For future reference, if I do decide to buy more books at B&N’s eBook store, it will be only once I know that the book has been released, that its not available in ePub (my preferred format for eBooks anyway), and that its for a good price.
Categories: Public
Well that’s a sneaky thing to do to the customer.
14.03.2010 09:07