Monday, December 31, 2012

How to buy my books internationally.

My books are available through numerous online stores.  They are also available internationally.  Here are the countries you can purchase my books in each store

Smashwords

1. You can purchase from Smashwords from anywhere in the world as long as you have internet and a credit card. 
2. When you buy a book, you can download multiple formats for whatever you read on.

And those are the reasons why I will always advise you to purchase from Smashwords over any other store.  (There are actually many more reasons, but those are the big ones.)

Apple


Apple is the second biggest international store.  There are more iDevices (iPad, iPhone, etc) than any other type of reader out there.

Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece Guatemala, Honduras, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States, United Kingdom, and Venezuela.

Kobo - A Canadian company that was recently bought out by Rakatan, a Japanese company.


Honestly, if you're living in any of these countries, I'd recommend the Kobo reader over Amazon's Kindle.  Kobo gives every evidence of being a better company internationally than Amazon.  This list states that it's as of May 2012, but they distribute to Japan now too.


As of May 2012, our list of established territories includes:

Canada, United States, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Singapore, Hong Kong


Amazon

Amazon is working hard to become the world's biggest online retailer.  They are very likely to succeed.  However, they tend to be combative and are actively trying to avoid taxes wherever possible.  This makes their entry into the international market difficult as they are pissing off governments from what I can see.  That said, they will succeed.  These are the countries where they have stores that are reported to me.

It is my understanding that they distribute to many more countries, but they add a $2.00 surcharge to each book.  Also, I don't receive the normal 70% royalty in these countries.  Amazon only pays 35%.  They are the only company that cuts royalties from other countries.  Amazon claims that they make books available in Canada and more than 175 countries worldwide.

Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Great Britain, Guernsey, Germany, Italy, India, Isle of Man, Japan, Jersey, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, San Marino, Switzerland, Spain, United States, Vatican City

Like I said, they claim to distribute to 175 countries worldwide, but if I understand correctly (and I may be mistaken) people have to log onto one of the other Amazon stores and they pay a surcharge for the books.

Barnes and Noble



It used to be that Barnes and Noble was only available in the U.S., but they have now expanded to the U.K. and are partnering with brick and mortar bookstores to sell their ereader.  After an infusion of cash from Microsoft, they are working on establishing a presence in new countries as well.

For three others, I contacted Smashwords and this is the information I received.

Sony


Has the US and Canada, though I hear they may be expanding into
other markets.

Diesel


Doesn't consistently provide location figures, but has included
Australia, New Zealand, India, the UK, Canada, Mexico and several
African nations.

Blio

Predominantly has US sales, but also UK, Canada, Mexico and New
Zealand.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another plus to Smashwords is that getting the updated versions/editions of books is a snap. You just hit download and can pick which version you wanna download from the most recent to the oldest. I WISH Amazon had some feature like that. Instead you gotta e-mail customer service and ask them to send you the latest version and occasionally you get a customer service representative who asks you to call instead or tells you you have the updated version when you know you don't etc. Glad Smashwords is your preferred seller lol have been asking Amazon for awhile now for an update feature.

On a different note, finished the Willden trilogy and am moving onto the Dralin trilogy now. Was sad to say goodbye at the end of Kethril but looking forward to getting to know Pelya and Ebudae. Any plans for Anilyia to show up at sometime in the future? She starts out kinda meek but ends up pretty badass lol

John H. Carroll said...

I agree that it would be nice for Amazon to have updated versions. Smashwords is constantly improving. They truly care about authors too.

You are the first person who has ever said anything nice about Anilyia! :D I think she turned out awesome. I plan on having her in future books, but it will be a while before her story comes around again. I'm working on more stories now.

All my best and thank you for reply. :)

Remember that the Dralin Trilogy begins before the Willden. :)