Books/Preorders missing from Amazon
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@Taedirk said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
@edowaado said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
Bookwalker
Bookwalker being a better platform's a pretty hot take. Aren't they still DRM-locking everything to their app?
Yeah, and you need to re authenticate every time you open the app or unlock your phone/tablet. Can be a pita if not on wifi.
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Personally, all this nonsense is why I prefer to use premium credits to get premium e-books directly from j-novel.club. It means I'm sure that I'll get whatever bonus short stories/illustrations are available and I know that all money is going to the people doing the good work.
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@sniper_samurai Ew. Yeah, still as horrible as I remember it. Buy DRM-free when you can, make it DRM-free when you can't.
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Surprised "There Was No Secret Evil-Fighting Organization (srsly?!), So I Made One Myself!" had that sort of illustration in it, but I guess it (sort of) makes sense why it was targeted along with the others then.
Still, is there like a group of people on a crusade to view and report all the new books with questionable color pages coming out of J-Novel Club and other LN publishers or something? Presumably it takes more than one person to flag something for it to automatically get taken down (if that's what we think is happening), and presumably you wouldn't randomly come across this many volumes without specifically searching them out, so I figure it's gotta be some coordinated group or something.
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yeah pls work to fix this :(
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@Taedirk said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
Bookwalker being a better platform's a pretty hot take. Aren't they still DRM-locking everything to their app?
Yeah. If you want a platform where the DRM can be easily removed but don't want Amazon, then Kobo is a great choice. For non-JNC books, that's where I buy them. As long as Bookwalker's DRM can't be stripped off, I won't buy from them. However, quite a few people seem to not understand about DRM or don't care, which is too bad, since if more people cared, maybe publishers would actually be forced to change. At least JNC provides an option for buying their books without DRM.
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@Kalessin said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
However, quite a few people seem to not understand about DRM or don't care, which is too bad, since if more people cared, maybe publishers would actually be forced to change..
Did you know that there's an option to "Download and Transfer via USB" in Amazon's content management site? Because it no longer works for No Game No Life's removed titles.
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@Taedirk said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
Did you know that there's an option to "Download and Transfer via USB" in Amazon's content management site? Because it no longer works for No Game No Life's removed titles.
I didn't know about that, but I think that I've bought only a single volume of anything from Amazon, and it was to compare it with the Kobo and Nook versions. Aside from the fact that Amazon is close enough to being a monopoly that I think I should support their competition, Amazon uses their own e-book format which limits the size of image files, which I don't want to put up with. I want epub files with images which are as high quality as the publishers will provide. When comparing Amazon, Nook, and Kobo, Kobo was the clear winner both in terms of the files that you get and the ease of removing the DRM. I haven't done much of anything Amazon or Nook e-books since.
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@Kalessin Up until now, Kindle purchases have been an ease-of-ecosystem/workflow thing for me. I can't say that I've really looked in to how Kobo handles things but I'm definitely a touch curious now.
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@TadPrime They used to have one. They got rid of it years ago.
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Guess I need to look into Kobo.
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I really hope this doesn't discourage JNC and other publishers from licensing title with fan service in them. I'd hate to be denied access to fun titles just because of this mess.
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I don't think you'll need to worry too much about that, everything about this really points to the issue of Amazon throwing so many automated systems into things without proper human review processes while the pandemic plays out. It's given people with a bone to pick an easy way to harass various companies with little chance of blowback.
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Unfortunately as much as would love to stop using amazon, especially after thoose stupid ban, they're still the only bookstore where I can remove DRM, which doesn't have some strange region-locking thing, and isn't lacking some publishers.
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@Raitoiro said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
isn't lacking some publishers
Now it is lacking a huge part of some publishers' stuff though. Buy directly from JNC?
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@Kalessin Other than Kobo, which I usually use to buy Japanese stuff, Google Playstore is also an option. When it comes to JNC novels with no significant premium content, it's my platform of choice simply because for some reason, the price on all ebooks gets a considerable discount in my home country's region. Both of them use Adobe DRM so same method of stripping.
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@nofairytale The main issue with the Google Play Store is the lack of regions where Yen Press titles are available.
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@nofairytale Yes, Google Play Books is another options, though in at least some cases, with manga, they have pdf files instead of epub for some reason (which is extremely undesirable IMHO). I'm also able to get better prices with Kobo with quite a few books thanks to Kobo's VIP membership (it doesn't apply to all books, since it depends on the publisher, but it's 10% off per book where it does apply, which can definitely add up). Obviously though, where the best prices are for you is going to depend on a variety of factors, including your region.
Nook is another option whose DRM can be removed, though it's actually very annoying to do so now, because it can no longer be done with their PC application (the DRM could be stripped from older versions, but those don't work anymore). Instead, you have deal with a rooted Android device (or emulated Android device).
The big one to avoid is Bookwalker, since if anyone has cracked their DRM, they haven't made it available.
Regardless, for JNC, I always just get the premium editions and don't have to worry about stripping off any DRM, but it's definitely something to be concerned about with e-books in general.
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@Raitoiro said in Books/Preorders missing from Amazon:
Unfortunately as much as would love to stop using amazon, especially after thoose stupid ban, they're still the only bookstore where I can remove DRM, which doesn't have some strange region-locking thing, and isn't lacking some publishers.
Amazon does restrict regions for their ebooks for certain titles while physical books will still be ordeable. Happened to me in the past with a volume of I've Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years, bought it from Kobo instead.
Amazon is definitely not the only service where you can strip the DRM. Doing so with Kobo is trivial, as mentioned in replies same for Google Play Store. Even Nook is manageable, despite what Kalessin says the rippers have been updated since late and should handle Nook too.
For BookWalker, I think the issue has to do with critical mass, while it has a lot of English manga and novels it doesn't have that much English literature over the board, making the incentive to solve the drm stripping issue low...
