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Walmart Launches Online Store For Ebooks, Audiobooks (variety.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the further-push dept.

Amazon just got yet another competitor in the ebook and audiobook space: Walmart launched its very own digital book store Wednesday, selling ebooks as well as audiobooks through its website and dedicated apps. From a report: The retail giant's digital book service is being powered by Kobo, the ebook company owned by Japan's Rakuten. Through the partnership, Walmart customers are now able to buy from a catalog of more than six million books, which can be read through dedicated mobile apps as well as Kobo's line of ebook readers. Walmart is also launching a Kobo-powered audiobook subscription service for $9.99 per month. For that price, consumers get one book credit per month. Audiobooks will be accessible even after a subscription is cancelled. As part of the partnership, Walmart will also start to sell so-called digital book cards that can be redeemed online for ebooks in 3500 stores.

55 comments

  1. Torrent sites by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Have much better selection and value. Plus the try before you buy model is great. Donate to authors you appreciate and never get ripped off by publishers.

    1. Re:Torrent sites by johnsie · · Score: 1

      Great if you want to infect your devices.

    2. Re:Torrent sites by DarkRookie · · Score: 1

      Only if you are an idiot.

      --
      The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
  2. Ebook fragmentation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Books are so pricy, i really dont eant to buy one especially from a retailer with a not so rosey track record

  3. No thanks by Misanthrope · · Score: 1

    I'll stick to using kobo itself instead of giving these jerks money. Now if somebody could make a decent e-reader at an ok price other thank Amazon that would be great.

    1. Re:No thanks by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1

      Google started doing some good pricing on audiobooks, and the download is MP3 format. More competition is good.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:No thanks by Mashiki · · Score: 1

      So you're okay giving one group of jerks money. But not another? Well whatever. More competition is good isn't it? Especially since amazon holds a dominant marketshare and making it damned hard for even those traditional book retailers to survive. This isn't forgetting the gigantic amount of pricefixing from companies like Apple.

      Anyway, if you want another e-reader at a good price, I recommend looking at Kobo. Upside is that many of them can also be reflashed, or you can simply pop out the microSD card, and load up your own preferred version of android without really having to jailbreak them.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    3. Re:No thanks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What are you illiterate, they just said they used kobo. Geez

    4. Re:No thanks by deviated_prevert · · Score: 1
      The absolute deal breaker for me is that adobe digital editions is not available in a usable .tgz format without using wine to load and register an Adobe Digital ID. My library access to all loaners requires Adobe drm that date expires. So the end result is my wife still requires either a Mac or Windows computer to use the local library for loaners on her Kobo. Either way without an Adobe Digital ID and library access you are stuck with paying through the nose to read just about anything these days. Unless you still go down to the library and take out books on your card.

      Funny but a library is just about the only place that you can still read books in peace. Until some illiterate jerk shows up and causes a ruckus trying to find some specific porn or where "can get I a Starbucks coffee in this joint" or is sitting their texting and answering calls like a crazed idiot beside you while you try to research Hector Berlioz treatise on orchestration and compare it to Rimsky and count and sight read the passages in peace!

      --
      This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
    5. Re:No thanks by zeugma-amp · · Score: 1

      No thanks to any service that requires a special dedicated reader.

      I support DRM-free publishers like baen that allow you to download your ebook in whatever format you want. Wish there were more of them.

      --
      This is an ex-parrot!
  4. Price? by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    Will ebooks actually be less expensive then physical books as they should be?

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    1. Re:Price? by The+Original+CDR · · Score: 2

      Probably not. Most traditional publishers are keeping ebook prices high to protect their print business. If the hardback is $36, expect the ebook to be priced the same.

    2. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. Why should they be? Paper and ink were negligible costs in book production, the bulk of the cost is licensing.

    3. Re:Price? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Based on the prices on Walmart's site it looks like their ebooks are more expensive than both the paperback and the Kindle versions on Amazon.

    4. Re:Price? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Informative

      I did work for a publishing company. Paper, Ink, binding are a huge part of the costs of book production. A 500 page textbook, with color images, hard cover binding, and made with good paper stock will cost $75 just for materials alone. They will then sell that book for $200 and give the author $3.00

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    5. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not true. Licensing (ie, author royalties) are a small part of the cost of paper books.

      It's not just the paper and ink (which does cost money), and the wear and tear on the presses (ditto), it's also the physical distribution of said books. For print runs (vs print-on-demand), there's also wastage when more books get printed than sold (but POD has higher overhead per book).

      Then there's whatever the publisher is paying for marketing, middleman markup, general office overhead, etc. Some of those costs come in with ebooks, too.

      All other things being equal, indie ebooks are typically a better deal because indies don't have the big publisher overhead, and more of the retail price goes to the author. The catch is that all things are not necessarily equal, unless you with an author or indie imprint who has already established their quality of writing, editing, proofing, etc. (Not to say that big publishers don't screw up on this from time to time too.)

      It's a little different for fiction vs non-fiction or textbooks. The latter typically have much higher editing and formatting overhead, and possibly fees for interior illustrations.

    6. Re:Price? by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      Ok so why should I pay more to get less? None of my family likes to read on electronic devices. I'll stick to real books thanks.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    7. Re:Price? by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      I thought distribution of physical books had to be expensive, just from the perspective of the weight of a box of books. So the ebook market sounds a bit corrupt. My family doesn't like them. I don't see the point of buying ebooks.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    8. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How can a textbook cost a publisher $75 to print when it's possible to print a hardbound textbook in qtys of one for $20 from multiple places, all you have to do is send them a PDF, a mailing address, and a CC #?

    9. Re:Price? by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

      Because the Walmart heirs need another billion dollars. The $200 billion they have isn't enough. Think of the children!

    10. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As an author this pisses me off to no end. Ebooks should always be cheaper than their physical counterpart. Always. I make very little off of each Ebook I sell so I can be sure my books are affordable. If you want a physical copy, then you are going to pay a premium for it. The only one that is out of my hands is the cost of the audio book.
      I have no delusions about getting rich off the books I sell, because I know it's not going to happen. I write to tell stories, and I want people to enjoy those stories, period.
      Pricing Ebooks like their physical counterpart is simply a cash grab from those people willing to pay for it.

    11. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Maybe the textbook needs crisp full-color Images and Illustrations on extra-thin extra-durable paper? Of course the edition only has a circulation of 1,000 books.

    12. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yep. I won't buy an ebook if the price is more than about 1/3 the price of the trade paperback. Which generally means I don't buy trad-published works any more. Plenty of good indie authors out there (plenty of not so good, too - caveat emptor, and read reviews.)

    13. Re:Price? by BuckBundy · · Score: 0

      I just visited the site and and at least the first results listed there are surprisingly frugal (for ebooks).
      I am in no way affiliated with Walmart, but I know my books; I own a site that rates books sold on/available from other sites.

      --
      BookDetective.net - book search engine and ranker I donate my skills to.
    14. Re: Price? by datavirtue · · Score: 2

      No, and Walmart customers do not read so this is all for naught.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    15. Re:Price? by Spacejock · · Score: 1

      Depends which authors you buy from. Once trad publishers realise giving away the first book in a series is a great way to gain attention, the floodgates will open. (Indie authors discovered this in a big way in 2011, but things move a lot slower in the corporate world. Plus they have contracts to deal with, and indies don't.

      --
      Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
    16. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I worked in book distribution for several years. Printing, transporting, storing etc. are all costly. At the time there were agreements that stores could send back unsold stock, which was an additional cost. So, yeah, eBooks remove a lot of expense.

      Whether that expense is significant relative to producing a book, I don’t know. Material handling costs are probably not significant compared to developing authors, editing, marketing books and selling them to stores (and convincing stores to put them where customers will see them).

      But it really doesn’t matter. The heart of the “eBooks should be cheaper” argument is that they are cheaper to distribute (or so it is assumed). This is a naive assumption about how prices are set. At best, it impacts the price floor for a very simple business, e.g. one where “loss leaders” are not a factor. The book industry is not simple.

      From an author/publisher perspective, it likely is not assumed that a paper book is worth more to the reader than an eBook. Personally I find eBooks more convenient to buy and read. It’s a bonus for me that they are cheaper at all, and I wouldn’t go back to paper if they weren’t.

      As in most consumer products, the price of eBooks is what the market will bear more than a function of the cost of production.

    17. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given Wal-mart's previous record with digital storefronts, I hope these ebooks at least come DRM-free.

      Wal-mart is one of the biggest companies that simply shut down their drm-ed music store simply because the talking heads wanted it to make even more money than it was making. It wasn't a drain on their resources.

    18. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because the Walmart heirs need another billion dollars. The $200 billion they have isn't enough. Think of the children!

      And all the starving politicians they have to support!

    19. Re:Price? by fluffernutter · · Score: 1

      All the writing, publishing, editing costs are equal for an ebook as for a real book. "This is a naive assumption on how prices are set". i guess it's like going to 7-11 to buy your groceries, you are going to pay more. Many slashdotters here will tell you that technology makes everything cheaper and that companies are not hoarding the benefits of it. Next time I get into that discussion I will bring this one up. Also, I know a lot of readers. All have tried ebooks, none use them regularly. Maybe you like it, but a lot of people don't.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    20. Re:Price? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It took me nearly 20 years to get used to eBooks, starting with the primitive Rocket eBook reader.

      For many reasons, some of which are certainly mismanagement and failure to innovate, it’s hard to make a buck in the book trade. At this point, I expect that many publishers are subsidizing paper books with the “extra” profit from eBooks. Some may see that as unfair to eBook buyers. I see it as necessary to keeping professionally produced books available in any format.

  5. Overdrive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    With Overdrive (Libby) I still don't know why anyone pays for ebooks, or audiobooks. I don't understand why people pay for a service (through taxes) then pay again for the same service through amazon, walmart, audible, etc.

  6. Re:UFC Fighter Bryce Mitchell Drilled His Nuts Apa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I like to squeeze ketchup on my barely runny scrambled eggs. I call it bloody scrambled eggs. Thanks for never letting me enjoy that again because it's going to make me think about getting my nutsack scrambled by a friggin drill and lose all my sea men.

  7. If it was OPEN - PDF, EPUB, etc.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'd buy ebooks. For this DRM-fucked wanabe crapola, forget it. Better to spend my money on Humble Bundle! Though I lean more toward Big Data Books than Lord of the Rings RPGs. (Humble Bundle has had a few O'Reilly sets & Bruce Schneier Security books, including Applied Cryptography, over the years!)

    1. Re:If it was OPEN - PDF, EPUB, etc.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Kobo reader is actually a pretty nice device in that it natively supports multiple file formats (epub, pdf, mobi, cdr/cdz, txt, rtf, jpg) either with or without DRM whereas the Kindle only supports azw natively.

    2. Re:If it was OPEN - PDF, EPUB, etc.... by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

      We have kobo readers, they are collecting dust because it is too awkward and slow to skim pages. Real books are king in our house.

      --
      Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
    3. Re:If it was OPEN - PDF, EPUB, etc.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fascinating.

  8. Is this stuff standardized yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Are these things standardized yet, so that I can use whatever to read the books? Or do you have to use their app because the books don't work with anything else (DRM)?

  9. Print is expensive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    I don't work in books, but I work in newspaper (wanna hear about a dying industry?) and I assure you, the costs of printing are a very big deal. And our printing is cheap (needs to last a week) compared to books (where you expect it to last a century).

  10. Re:UFC Fighter Bryce Mitchell Drilled His Nuts Apa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You should see how they castrate horses, they take this bit that looks like a large needle eye, chuck it in a drill, slip the nuts through and spin those suckers right off. Just twirling them around like a couple tether-balls. it looks like a party favor, but made of horse nuts.

  11. More me-too-ism from Walmart by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    If Amazon had toilets for two in their employee bathrooms, Walmart would be installing them right now.

    It won't save them.

  12. Now if Long & McDingle by deviated_prevert · · Score: 1
    Now if the music store conglomerates would only start to sell subscription based large screen e-ink music stand devices and digital sheet music, hell might freeze over. Smart as hell though, of Japanese and Walmart to get on the band wagon with what is the future of consumer book publishing though we will see if this actually takes off and puts a dent in the AMAZON rainforest!

    With Mel Bay buying up the publication rights in North America for all the great stuff at Schott and elsewhere you would think that eventually we will see letter sized e-ink music publishing for ... well JUST ABOUT EVERY MUSICIAN, SCHOOL ON THE PLANET! OH excuse me then the forest industry would be hurt and Canada might stop causing wild fires in California [/rant]

    If you cannot see these connections you are completely out of touch and need to STOP TO READ THE NEWS IN DETAIL.

    --
    This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
  13. My own files? by DarkRookie · · Score: 1

    Unless I am getting an EPUB and a MP3/FLAC/WAV, its not worth checking out.

    --
    The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
    1. Re:My own files? by johnsie · · Score: 1

      Yeah, like they are going to base their whole business model around one person on Slashdot. They don't target people like you, they target the dumb majority who don't give a crap about technical specs.

    2. Re:My own files? by chrish · · Score: 1

      I have no idea what Walmart is doing (if anything), but Kobo's stuff is mostly DRM-free, and it's all epub. It's also trivial to get books from other sources onto the device, it mounts as a USB drive and you just copy it over.

      Kobo's e-readers are well-supported by Calibre too. I've owned several, and they've been great. I currently have a Clara HD and my only complaint is that the sleep cover available for it is stupid.

      I wouldn't suggest buying one of their Android tablets (unless it's known to be rootable and you can install Lineage or something on it; I've got an Arc 10HD forever stuck on 4.4), but their e-readers are excellent.

      --
      - chrish
  14. Thanks. by nospam007 · · Score: 1

    "Amazon just got yet another competitor in the ebook and audiobook space"

    Got a good laugh, thanks.
    Especially the 'yet' was funny.

  15. Sans DRM? I'm interested. Otherwise, not at all. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sans DRM? I'm interested. Otherwise, I'm not.
    I want to read/listen on any device I own today and in 50 yrs. I want my different books to be given to my different kids and grandkids without worry they won't be able to enjoy the text or stories.

    Just say NO to DRM. Use your wallet/cash.

    And don't forget that your local public library probably has access to 10,000+ ebooks and audiobooks - with DRM and all the tracking you'd expect, thanks to Amazon.

  16. Costs are not prices by radarskiy · · Score: 1

    It would be interesting to hear an actual argument about why ebooks should be priced less than paper books, since most dumbasses just get bogged down in a discussion of costs instead.

    1. Re:Costs are not prices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's an argument between physical and digital, and yes, production cost is a major factor in that.
      Anyone can write a book, and with the same tools they used to write that book they can create an Ebook that can be distributed worldwide almost effortlessly, and the only cost involved is time. But not everyone can print a book or have it distributed worldwide. It takes money and lots of it.
      An Ebook can be priced well below that of its printed counterpart and allow the author to still make the same amount they would have on the traditional printed version. That is just a fact.
      So yes, Ebooks should be priced less than a traditional printed book.

  17. Get an Aura ONE by Duckman5 · · Score: 1

    If you're already in the Kobo ecosystem, you could upgrade to the Kobo Aura ONE. Kobo bought Overdrive a while back and integrated borrowing into the e-reader. You just search put in your library card info, search for a book, and select borrow. It's all done on the e-reader. You don't even need to use a computer at all. I've been really happy with mine (for the few weeks I've had it). The other option is to go over to the dark side and get a kindle. Many libraries let you temporarily add books to your kindle library and they sync over just like a regular purchase. Either way, no WINE, no USB cable, no proprietary OS on your computer.

  18. Audible already does most of that. by grep+-v+'.*'+* · · Score: 1

    For that price, consumers get one book credit per month. Audiobooks will be accessible even after a subscription is cancelled.

    Audible (now Amazon) has done this for years. I've got a lot of audiobooks and canceled my subscription years ago but still have access to all of them. (I have a local copy just in case.)

    They're all DRMed, but the accessibility convenience and player portability is very good so for the most part is doesn't matter. (And, AHEM, the DRM isn't that hard to get around to play on odd devices.)

    Since Amazon now owns Audible, they've linked audiobooks and ebooks together where you can start in one and switch to the other midstream and not lose your place.

    Walmart will also start to sell so-called digital book cards that can be redeemed online for ebooks in 3500 stores.

    That's new. Hope it works out, Amazon wouldn't dream of doing this.

    --
    If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
    1. Re:Audible already does most of that. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it were $9.99/mo for unlimited, I'd byte. I go through at least one a week on Overdrive, but am willing to pay a subscription to get he latest releases without a wait.

    2. Re:Audible already does most of that. by unrtst · · Score: 1

      A $9.99/month subscription to get ONE audiobook a month seems completely useless to me. I'm really hoping TFS is inaccurate.

      I tried finding the audiobook subscription on walmart.com, but I can't find the details (yet - maybe it's not live yet).

      If it were for one active audiobook at a time, that would make for a great subscription, similar to how the old safari bookshelf worked. However, since they're advertising that you get to keep the audiobook, it seems likely that it IS limited to just ONE audiobook a month. That's just stupid. You can just buy one when you want one - why subscribe?!!?!

  19. Screw you once, shame on them. Screw you twice... by ChrisKnight · · Score: 1

    Walmart's digital services haven't worked out so good for consumers in the past. https://boingboing.net/2008/09...

    --
    -- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --