No matter how hard competitors try, Kindle e-readers remain among the most popular in the world. A major factor in this is their seamless integration with Amazon’s vast library of e-books, making it incredibly convenient for users to buy and read books directly from the platform.
However, there has always been one frustrating limitation—Kindle devices have traditionally supported a very restricted set of formats. If we exclude image files, Kindles could only handle TXT, Microsoft Word documents (DOC), and Amazon’s proprietary e-book format, commonly known as MOBI (with file extensions like .azw or .mobi, depending on the version). This is where competitors have tried to outdo Amazon by offering support for a wide variety of formats. But in reality, do we even need an excessive number of formats?
Those who frequently use the LitRes website may have noticed that sometimes eBooks are offered in two ePub formats: standard ePub and iOS.ePub. Many have probably wondered, what’s the difference? I was curious too, so, as a well-known nerd… researcher, I decided to conduct my own investigation.
In addition to offering two formats, LitRes sometimes sells books in the iOS.ePub format separately from the regular eBook edition, and often at a significantly higher price. They used to do this quite often with Boris Akunin’s books.
Since deep down I’m still a bit of a programmer, I have a general idea of what the ePub format is (without getting into the weeds, it’s essentially hypertext). That’s why I was very curious about this sub-format LitRes invented, one they’re charging extra for.
When you try searching online, the results are pretty sparse. They mostly mirror the standard response you’d get from LitRes tech support when asking this question: “iOS.ePub is adapted for viewing on iOS devices.” Not exactly the most helpful answer. Thanks, Captain Obvious, so to speak. And even when you follow up with another question, Captain Obvious doesn’t falter:
There is a concept known as affiliate (referral) programs. In short: you promote a store’s products, and in return, the store gives you a percentage of each sale. It’s generally beneficial for everyone: the store gains new customers thanks to advertising on external platforms, and the authors of popular resources get a small cut from the stores if their readers decide to make a purchase. Moreover, this is highly advantageous for stores (from my non-professional point of view). In most cases, when you pay for advertising, you spend money without any guarantee of getting it back. But here, you essentially receive free advertising and only pay a small percentage of the actual revenue generated by the user. Furthermore, as a store, you typically pay for a single purchase, but the buyer might stay and become a long-term customer. For subsequent purchases, you almost never pay anyone. Additionally, there’s the well-known factor of the first purchase—it’s much harder to convince someone to make their first purchase, but if they’re satisfied, the likelihood of a second purchase increases significantly.
As a devoted bookworm, I’ve always kept an eye on the development of online book sales. I witnessed the rise and growth of ozon.ru, and I even had a small hand in the creation of the Belarusian oz.by when it launched. From then on, I simply followed the market’s evolution.
As soon as such stores started offering affiliate programs, I signed up to test them out. This was especially advantageous when I was regularly writing the ” The Notes of Glitch the Hamster” series (the namesake of this blog), which reviewed all the latest sci-fi releases on the Russian-speaking market. Back then, I included links to books directly in my reviews, using my affiliate ID. I wouldn’t say I earned a lot, but I did manage to buy a few books (considering that getting books from Russian ozon to Belarus at the time wasn’t exactly easy).
I’ve loved reading since childhood and have almost always held books in reverence. My parents had a fairly large library, and I enjoyed browsing through the books, cataloging them, and even keeping track of everything I’d read. Later, I started buying books myself and often felt pleasure simply from owning them, even if I hadn’t yet had time to read them. Just having a book on the shelf was wonderful in itself. At one point, I even seriously considered getting into the book business but eventually limited myself to making good acquaintances in that world.
Then, out of the blue, someone recommended The Diary of a Bookseller by Shaun Bythell to me, saying, “If you love books so much, you absolutely must read it.”
Amazon, with its Kindle platform, has done a tremendous job in promoting eBooks. Unlike physical books, the production cost of an eBook can essentially be considered zero. Why? Because it’s created once and then requires no additional resources (while each copy of a physical book uses paper and ink at the very least). After that, you can sell 10 copies or a million without incurring any further direct costs.
That’s why I’ve always said that selling eBooks is, in many ways, selling air. And it’s for this reason that the pricing model for them is so intriguing. Typically, the price is comparable to that of the equivalent paperback book. After that, various local factors come into play: who the publisher is, how well-known the author is, which country the book is being sold in, and so on.
The approach to selling eBooks also differs from country to country. Just recently, writer Alexey Pehov mentioned that in Germany, eBooks might be released before the printed version, with similar pricing, and publishers there don’t believe it impacts print sales. In Russia, however, it’s the opposite: there’s always talk that releasing an eBook “kills” print sales (although I’ve never seen direct proof of this). As a result, sometimes you have to wait several weeks, or even months, for the eBook version to come out after the print release.
But yesterday, I discovered that even within the same book, prices can vary. This came as a surprise to me, and I found out quite unexpectedly.
I decided to buy the Kindle version of a book on Amazon. I found it, saw the price—$6.13. I noticed I was browsing anonymously, so I logged into my account. And then, surprise! The price for the same book was now $6.30. Let me emphasize—it was the exact same eBook!
The difference wasn’t huge, but it piqued my interest. So, I tried searching for the same book anonymously, accessing the site via a VPN from different regions. From Russia, the price was also $6.30, but when I accessed the store as if from Chicago, USA, the price nearly doubled to around $12.
I did some research online and found that I’m not the only one who has noticed this discrepancy. However, Amazon doesn’t comment on the situation. Judging by posts, sometimes their support team even shuts down such inquiries with a note saying, “case closed” (which I find odd, as my experience with Amazon’s customer service has always been great—they’re usually very customer-oriented).
Some speculate that this might be related to local taxes or other factors (similar to how Steam now includes VAT for purchases from Russia). But this explanation seems unclear, especially given my own experience: I checked the book price from Cyprus while browsing anonymously, then logged into my account again from Cyprus—and the price changed. Yet, there’s no clear link between an Amazon account and a specific country (there’s a billing address, and I have several cards linked, so it’s unclear how they choose). And in Russia, where VAT is now applied, the price was the same.
So, this is just another example of a strange and still unclear approach to pricing for a digital product.
I read a lot on my tablet. I also have a Kindle, but the tablet is always with me, and carrying two devices makes no sense at all. So, over time, the tablet became my main tool for reading (in addition to its other important functions). I mostly read books in PDF (some books require layout preservation) or, for the most part, in EPUB/FB2. These are two formats that are quite similar in terms of their philosophy.
I’ve tried a ton of different reading apps, and I’ve purchased at least five in addition to the native iBooks. But I still haven’t found the perfect option for myself. That’s why I periodically switch between different apps.
The closest to ideal for me is KyBook. In fact, I liked the first version more than the current KyBook 2. The new version, in my opinion, is overloaded, which affects basic functionality, requiring too many extra steps. However, the first version had occasional rendering glitches, and now the author is no longer developing it. Nevertheless, it still has its undeniable advantages:
It’s almost universal: it supports all the formats I need—PDF, EPUB, and FB2.
It displays pages when viewing the table of contents (which helps me gauge the length of chapters).
It can show footnotes on the same page, meaning the footnote text pops up above the main text instead of redirecting to the end of the book, as most readers do. This is incredibly convenient because you don’t lose your place and can see the context immediately. However, it seems to only work for FB2.
It natively supports an English-Russian dictionary (which is sometimes very useful), with translations popping up in the same way above the text. And it works in all three formats.
Although a bit clunky, it keeps a history of the last few books (which is handy since I often read several books in parallel).
It allows you to create a folder structure for better organization of your library (though I have to admit, the new version makes this very inconvenient. The old version did it better because the new one introduced the concepts of “Books” and “Files.” Folders only work for files, while some other functions only work for books. It’s incredibly frustrating).
It displays the current progress, the number of pages in the book, and the remaining pages in the chapter. Although it only shows progress as a percentage on the “recently read” tab, it’s not a big deal since I don’t need that feature often.
It allows for scrolling through PDFs (not just page flipping) and provides zooming options. Plus, it can convert PDFs to sepia.
There are other features, but they’re less essential.
Unfortunately, the program has its downsides. Rendering glitches occur from time to time, where all the paragraphs merge together, including the headings. Sadly, I haven’t been able to fix this. And this leads to the second downside: the developer, who used to be very responsive, has recently been slower to reply to user questions, often redirecting people to the FAQ, which, by the way, is very superficial and doesn’t answer more complex questions. Plus, it often seems like the developer takes many questions personally, which makes for an overall unpleasant experience. I can understand that on a human level sometimes, but after all, it’s the customers and buyers asking.
The second contender is Marvin. An excellent reader. I bought both the second and third versions (both had free versions, but there are also premium ones). When compared to KyBook, here are the differences:
It only supports EPUB.
It doesn’t display page numbers in the table of contents (or I couldn’t find this feature).
It supports either system dictionaries, transferring to Lingvo (which requires purchasing the dictionaries separately), or using a web lookup. However, this is still inconvenient since it can’t display an English-Russian translation directly above the text, and jumping to another app is less comfortable (the web option isn’t ideal either: it’s inconvenient and requires internet, which isn’t always available).
It can’t show in-text footnotes. But to be fair, I haven’t seen any other reader, including foreign ones, that does this either.
And then there’s the third option: the native iBooks. In terms of features, it’s the most limited. It displays PDFs only in the original color scheme, with no scrolling (just page-by-page flipping). Most of KyBook’s advantages for EPUB are also missing.
There are other apps, but they’re also quite limited or outdated. So, I mostly stick with KyBook, but when its minor flaws or the interface issues in the new version become too annoying, I switch to Marvin or iBooks.
What do you use for reading? What features are essential to you when reading?
