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Add to SafariWhen comparing Amazon Kindle Store vs WHSmith, the Slant community recommends Amazon Kindle Store for most people. In the question“What are the best eBook stores?” Amazon Kindle Store is ranked 1st while WHSmith is ranked 7th. The most important reason people chose Amazon Kindle Store is:
Amazon being as large as they are can often undercut the pricing of eBooks. This is not always the case as a lot of eBooks have their prices set by the publisher. this is called agency pricing. But on non-agency eBooks Amazon is often the cheapest store.
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Often has lower prices compared to other eBook retailers
Amazon being as large as they are can often undercut the pricing of eBooks. This is not always the case as a lot of eBooks have their prices set by the publisher. this is called agency pricing. But on non-agency eBooks Amazon is often the cheapest store.
Pro Self publishing
Amazon allows for users to self publish eBooks and audiobooks.
Pro App for almost every platform
Amazon offers the Kindle app for just about every platform. So far there are apps for Android, iOS, Blackberry, PC, Mac, and Windows Phone 7. Conspicuously the Linux platform is absent from that list.
Pro Offer optional subscription service
Amazon offers an unlimited (actually it is pretty limited) eBook service similar to what netflix offer for movies. Though the selection is on the smaller side compared to their regular eBook store.
Pro Lots of 100% discounts
It's easy to get a lot of books for free if you use this IFTTT recipe.
Pro Send eBook as gift [US only]
The Amazon Kindle store allows for users to send eBooks as a gift to any e-mail address of their choosing along with a custom message, though for now this feature is US only.
Pro Kindle Owners' Lending Library
The Kindle Owners' Lending Library is a feature of Amazon Prime, a service that costs $99 a year that includes such features as free two day shipping on Amazon orders and a membership to their video and music services. The Kindle Owners' Lending Library has more than 600,000 books users can borrow (one at a time) with no time limitation.
Pro Kindle Daily Deals
Amazon offers discounted eBooks daily for their "Kindle Daily Deals". The eBooks can be as much as 80% off the normal retail price. Though often the eBooks on offer of of low quality or unheard of titles.
Pro Instant quality with Kobo eReaders, apps and eBooks store
Instead of developing their own eBook store, eReaders or reading apps WHSmith has the instant gratification of offering quality products with an established brand.
Pro WHSmith and Kobo partnership create competition
A good thing about the WHSmith eBook store and its Kobo partnership is that it creates competition in the UK for eBook stores and devices. WIth competition comes better prices and innovation.
Cons
Con All eBooks are in a proprietary format
Unlike other eBook stores, Amazon does not offer .epub's (a free and open eBook standard) for their Kindle devices. What they do offer is a proprietary format that only will work on their own Kindle devices. Sadly this creates user lock in as there is no way to take those digital titles to another reader without stripping the DRM from them (something that may or may not be illegal in certain countries) and converting to a format that does work on said other devices.
Con Amazon is an evil corporation
Con Bad communication
Con A lot of books are copy and paste from the web
Large selection, but there is an ever increasing numbers of books that are less than 100 pages, mainly created copying and pasting freely available information from the web. Searching for what you want is becoming difficult, with results showing lots of pointless and poorly written small books.
Con Some titles not available on the store
While most mainstream books can be found easily, there are a few smaller titles that are just not on the store at all.
Con Just a re-branded Kobo eBook store
WHSmith has entered a contract to where they are now partnered with Kobo. With this deal WHSmith has replaced their old eBook store with a Kobo powered alternative. Basically it is just a WHSmith skin over the Kobo eBook store.
Con UK only store
eBooks are only priced in GBP.
