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Walmart Launches Online Store For Ebooks, Audiobooks (variety.com) 55

Posted by msmash 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.
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Walmart Launches Online Store For Ebooks, Audiobooks More

Walmart Launches Online Store For Ebooks, Audiobooks

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  • 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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      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 [kobo.com]. Upside is that many of them can also be reflashed, or you can simply pop out the microSD car

      • 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
        • If you're already in the Kobo ecosystem, you could upgrade to the Kobo Aura ONE [kobobooks.com]. 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 kindl

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

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

  • Price? (Score:3)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @01:09PM (#57175416)
    Will ebooks actually be less expensive then physical books as they should be?
    • 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.
    • 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.
      • 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.
        • Because the Walmart heirs need another billion dollars. The $200 billion they have isn't enough. Think of the children!

    • 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.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • 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.

  • More me-too-ism from Walmart (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 22, 2018 @02:08PM (#57175814)

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

    It won't save them.

  • 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

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

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chrish ( 4714 )

      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

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

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

  • 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

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

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