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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.

30 of 55 comments (clear)

  1. 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.

      --
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    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 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!

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    4. 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!
  2. Price? by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

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

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    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 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.

    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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!

    7. 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
    8. 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
    9. 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.
  3. 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).

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

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  6. 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
  7. 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.
  8. 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.

  9. 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.

  10. 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.

  11. 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 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?!!?!

  12. 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...

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    -- This sig is only a test. If this were a real sig it would say something witty. --
  13. Re:Torrent sites by johnsie · · Score: 1

    Great if you want to infect your devices.

  14. 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.