Google Books now available in Ireland

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

DECEiFER

Good catch!

I'd be more excited about TV shows but not even the UK has them yet. I believe TV shows are only in the US at the moment.

Also, of course, devices. I don't know about everyone else, but it pisses me off that Google don't aim for region-wide releases of all their new toys. Like the Nexus Experience S4 and HTC One. They could have rolled that out to all the countries with devices available. True, there's different models outside the US and it takes a bit of time to port the software, but how long does it really take? A script kiddy could do it within a month, albeit with bugs, but it goes to show that it's not something that needs to take an age.

Even when it comes to Google Play services like Music, they took their sweet time getting it out beyond the US. It should have spread to other regions a lot more quickly. At the end of the day, they're a company that serves the entire world and focusing on the US so blatantly is to alienate their customers elsewhere.

Gatling

Was hoping for a larger free catalogue ,
Not a lot of titles to buy or is this just slow roll out of titles

marcbrophy

Just spotted this myself!
In my library, there's 8 books already, but I don't think I've ever purchased any of them before!
Any else have books in there?

DECEiFER

Ha, I have three. I have no idea how they got there...

"Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen
"Wonderful Stories for Children" by Hans Christian Andersen
"Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus" by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly

MonkstownHoop

when i click into any free titles i am told this item is unavailable, im using the play store app on my S3

edit : its all books not just free

marcbrophy

I think I might have 'purchased' some free ones with a vpn before on the laptop, before it was available in Ireland.

That must be why I have 8 of them

DECEiFER

marcbrophy wrote: »

I think I might have 'purchased' some free ones with a vpn before on the laptop, before it was available in Ireland.

That must be why I have 8 of them

I purchased nothing! Must be a gift from Google.

marcbrophy

DECEiFER wrote: »

I purchased nothing! Must be a gift from Google.

I won't turn my nose up at anything free!

Gatling

DECEiFER wrote: »

I purchased nothing! Must be a gift from Google.

OK are they full books or ones you have just looked at on the play store

DECEiFER

Gatling wrote: »

OK are they full books or ones you have just looked at on the play store

I've also looked at nothing, I've never been much of an e-book person; I've never once VPN'd to another region and downloaded any titles or even looked at any. Though, they seem full to me, the chapter lists certainly indicate that.

Is your library empty or does it only have titles that you previously purchased from another region?

Gatling

DECEiFER wrote: »

I've also looked at nothing, I've never been much of an e-book person; I've never once VPN'd to another region and downloaded any titles or even looked at any. Though, they seem full to me, the chapter lists certainly indicate that.

Is your library empty or does it only have titles that you previously purchased from another region?

The only things I'm seeing is books I've browsed after a few pages I get an you've reached the end of your sample

DECEiFER

Gatling wrote: »

The only things I'm seeing is books I've browsed after a few pages I get an you've reached the end of your sample

I'm getting the option to download the EPUB and PDF and navigating through the chapters using Google's online reader, I'm not getting any message to say I'm reached the end of my sample.

They're definitely full titles. I really have no idea how they got there. I had a similar situation with music in 2012, before it was released in Ireland. I used a DNS for Netflix so I could watch US content and I noticed it brought me to the US Play Store, so I downloaded a few freebies while I could and thought nothing of them for a while. I checked a bit later, maybe a month or two, and I saw a library full of tracks (about 90 of them) that I had not purchased or previewed. Those tracks are still in my library today.

Gatling

Well for some I must say

EGriff

The prices! €5 to €13 for an e-book. Yet another digital service where a less valuable version of the same product costs the same as or more than a physical copy.

DECEiFER

Gatling wrote: »

Well for some I must say

I did attempt to use the Music Manager last year and it didn't seem to work, so I considered that maybe it matched my tracks. But matching wasn't available back then, and I only had a few of the tracks, most I didn't have.

I assumed they just horsed out freebies to everyone at the beginning.

EGriff wrote: »

The prices! €5 to €13 for an e-book. Yet another digital service where a less valuable version of the same product costs the same as or more than a physical copy.

Absolutely. The overhead is much less and the prices do not reflect that, not on iTunes, not on Google Play Music...nothing.

long_b

Just be a bit careful - on the "Top Free" category there are a couple of books showing up that actually cost money.

Had one bought before I noticed that - have requested a refund.

irishgeo

Looks nicer then the kindle app. Anyway to get the amazon books I bought into the Google books app.

Sonics2k

"item is not available" error for s3 owners.

I assume this will be fixed soon enough.

Edit:
Just need to restart the phone and go back to Play!
I'm highly amused the no. 1 book is by Sasha Gray

cosanostra

Sonics2k wrote: »

"item is not available" error for s3 owners.

I assume this will be fixed soon enough.

Download google play books app, select shop and it will take you to the play store forcing an update to the T&Cs enabling books to be purchased

MacBoogerBalls

EGriff wrote: »

The prices! €5 to €13 for an e-book. Yet another digital service where a less valuable version of the same product costs the same as or more than a physical copy.

There is 23% VAT on eBooks...

DECEiFER

MacBoogerBalls wrote: »

There is 23% VAT on eBooks...

The bastards!

EGriff

MacBoogerBalls wrote: »

There is 23% VAT on eBooks...

I didn't know that, cheeky government hoors, its 0% on printed books.

Still what's the book shops mark-up on a normal book? 50%? Also an eBook doesn't need a tree chopped down, printed and bound and shipped to the shop. Once its digitised the costs are essentially zero apart from hosting a tiny file on a server.

DECEiFER

EGriff wrote: »

I didn't know that, cheeky government hoors, its 0% on printed books.

Still what's the book shops mark-up on a normal book? 50%? Also an eBook doesn't need a tree chopped down, printed and bound and shipped to the shop. Once its digitised the costs are essentially zero apart from hosting a tiny file on a server.

There's the cost of paying the publisher the royalties. Still, you'd think there'd be a noticeable discount for going digital.

EGriff

DECEiFER wrote: »

There's the cost of paying the publisher the royalties. Still, you'd think there'd be a noticeable discount for going digital.

To be fair to Google and Amazon I'd imagine its the greedy publishers driving up the price rather than the digital stores themselves. Gouging us on prices like they are doing is only gonna hurt them in the long run.

No one is going to pay €13 for an eBook when a real copy is €10 in a shop. Even typing that sentence makes me laugh.

DECEiFER

EGriff wrote: »

To be fair to Google and Amazon I'd imagine its the greedy publishers driving up the price rather than the digital stores themselves. Gouging us on prices like they are doing is only gonna hurt them in the long run.

No one is going to pay €13 for an eBook when a real copy is €10 in a shop. Even typing that sentence makes me laugh.

The industries, in particular, the music industry, is slow to adapt and stubborn. They were initially against digital music, with Napster and that scaring the living sh1t out of them. I remember using Napster back in the day on a 33.6Kbps connection and how there was a huge panic about it, with the only exceptions that certain artists weren't bothered about it. The record labels themselves on the other hand have been very reluctant over the years to subscribe to the iTunes way of doing business and I'm betting they are milking as much as they can from it. Hopefully this will change, but it's surprising that in 2013, so many years on, that it hasn't.

donspeekinglesh

EGriff wrote: »

I didn't know that, cheeky government hoors, its 0% on printed books.

It's the EU in this case. Because ebooks are not a product, but a service. Apparently.

hcnyla

EGriff wrote: »

The prices! €5 to €13 for an e-book. Yet another digital service where a less valuable version of the same product costs the same as or more than a physical copy.

You would think they would have learnt from the disaster the music industry made of digital files. I don't know is it greed or just plain stupidity.

It's no wonder people download mp3's and books etc for free.

Atomic Pineapple

This is great! If movies land soon then there's pretty much no reason left not to buy a Nexus tablet for me!

Gatling

draffodx wrote: »

This is great! If movies land soon then there's pretty much no reason left not to buy a Nexus tablet for me!

If you seen what there charging for books

I wouldn't be getting too excited about movies

Professey Chin

Gatling wrote: »

If you seen what there charging for books

I wouldn't be getting too excited about movies

This is where carrier billing becomes even better :pac:

5starpool

Books add almost nothing anyhow unless you only consume google products. There are many book apps, and books are easily available as kindle books, or alternative sources.

5starpool

5starpool wrote: »

Books add almost nothing anyhow unless you only consume google products. There are many book apps, and books are easily available as kindle books, or alternative sources.

Competition is always a good thing.

Atomic Pineapple

Gatling wrote: »

If you seen what there charging for books

I wouldn't be getting too excited about movies

Doesn't look too bad to me, €6 - €12 for a book I'll always have, never lose, be able to read pretty much anywhere, will never forget to bring with me sounds OK to me.

Some are much cheaper than on Amazon too. I bought some dev books that cost near 30 quid on Amazon and are only €12 on Play.

Mantis Toboggan

Anyone using this service and how good is it?

Wondering if the Roy Keane autobiography will be on it on Thursday when it's released?

54kroc

Buddy Holly wrote: »

Anyone using this service and how good is it?

Wondering if the Roy Keane autobiography will be on it on Thursday when it's released?

It's up there already on preorder for €12.99.

Mantis Toboggan

Ah Yes, I see that, says its released the 9th which is the same time its released in shops so hopefully it is, thanks.