We’re having an interesting discussion on the Carina authors’ loop, where a few of us have reported in that readers in the UK can’t get Carina titles via the iBookstore. As Carina titles are available in the US iBookstore, you can expect we find this a little frustrating!
We’ve also been discussing that Carina’s own site has issues with not accepting UK-based methods of payment, so that means directing UK readers to the main Carina site won’t necessarily be a workable solution, either. Also frustrating!
However, we have determined that there are still viable ways for UK-based readers who happen to be owners of Apple devices to get Carina books. The drawback to this is that you have to be willing to buy books from sources other than the iBookstore.
(This post is long, so the details are behind the fold.)
Carina titles are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Kobo. I can directly confirm my title available on the UK sites for both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. For Kobo, however, I can’t get directly at their UK site. I know Kobo does business in the UK, though, so I’m still reasonably confident that UK users can find my titles there.
(I’m pretty sure Kobo’s official site of kobobooks.com uses a thing called geoIP detection to figure out where your IP address is, and then it gives you the correct version of its site accordingly. In non-techie-speak, this means Kobo’s site is clever enough to figure out “oh, okay, you’re on a computer in the UK. Here, have the UK version of our site!” However, this means I can’t actually get at the UK version of the site myself, ’cause I’m in the US. Confirmation of this from any UK readers would be appreciated!)
If you want to read Carina titles in apps, do this
So if you’re a UK reader and you have an Apple device, you just need to decide if you’re willing to buy books from a source other than the Apple store. If you’re willing to deal with Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Kobo, here’s one course of action you can take:
- Choose what store you want to deal with
- Go sign up on their site if you don’t have an account there already
- Find the Carina titles you want and buy them
- Meanwhile, install the appropriate app on your Apple device
- Once you’ve made your purchases, they should show up in the app the next time you sync it
The drawback to this approach is that it scatters your books across multiple apps, which can be annoying if you want to keep things organized. On the other hand, if you also happen to have an actual ereader device as well as your iPhone or iPad, using the apps does give you the benefit of syncing your books across devices. So if you happen to own a Kindle or a Nook or a Kobo reader, you can use the app to sync your last read positions with any of those readers.
If you want to sideload Carina titles into iBooks, do this
Now, if you want to be more organized and make sure all your books still show up in iBooks, you can do that too. This requires a bit more work on your part though. You still need to sign up on one of the websites as I talk about above. But in this case, you download the purchased books straight to your computer.
Once you have them on your computer, you can then sideload them into iBooks. This is going to mean one of a few different things, depending on what kind of computer you have.
If your Mac is running a version of OS X older than Mavericks, you can add books to your library directly in iTunes. Look for the “Add to Library” item on the File menu. Once the book’s been added to iTunes, it should show up in iBooks on your Apple device next time you sync.
If you’re running Mavericks, you should pretty much do the same thing in the iBooks program.
The only thing I can’t directly confirm here is what you need to do if your computer is running Windows. iTunes is available for Windows, but iBooks is not, last I knew. In theory you should be able to just manually add Carina books to your iTunes library and sync to get them onto the device, but I can’t verify this myself since I don’t have an Apple device associated with Windows. Any UK readers who CAN confirm this, let me know!
If you want to manage your ebook library via Calibre, do this
Another option is to install Calibre to manage your ebook library on your computer. Calibre helps make it easier to get your books onto any device you like, including various ereaders and iTunes.
Calibre is a godsend for me–my ebook library is huge and I buy books from a lot of different sources. So keeping it organized in one master place is critical.
So if you’re a UK user and you have enough ebooks you’ve bought from sources besides iBooks that you need Calibre, you can use it to get the books onto your device that way. Calibre’s Help site has instructions on how to get Calibre to talk to your iPad or iPhone here.
Other possibilities
Other possibilities I can think of off the top of my head: if you want to go the Kobo route, one big reason that’s worth exploring is that Kobo often partners with bookstores to sell ebooks for them. In the US, this means they partner up with a bunch of indie bookstores, and so if you open a Kobo account and specifically tie it to your bookstore of choice, then that bookstore will get a cut of the sale whenever you buy a Kobo ebook. If they’re doing the same thing in the UK, this is well worth exploring.
I mention this because a quick google shows me that W.H. Smith sells ebooks via Kobo. Since I don’t live there I’m unfamiliar with what other bookstores might do the same, but I will report on any others as I find them!
ALSO: Google Play may be a viable option. I know Carina titles show up on Google Play in the US, but because of the geoIP thing I talked about further up the post, I can’t directly get at the Google Play store for the UK. So I can’t personally verify if that works. But if you buy from Google Play I’m pretty sure you should be able to download your purchase onto your computer–at which point you can sideload it into iTunes or iBooks, or pull it into Calibre.
Will Carina titles ever actually show up on the iBookstore?
We hope so! One of the other authors on the loop reported she’d asked Carina’s staff about that very question. We’re told this is a known issue and that Carina is pursuing making this work. If Carina’s efforts in this are successful, I’ll update accordingly!
And as always
The direct links to buy my Carina titles all live on the Valor of the Healer and Vengeance of the Hunter pages, but for the sake of tying in with the topic of this post, here are the relevant direct links I can give you!
Amazon UK
Valor of the Healer
Nook UK
Valor of the Healer
If you want to go to the Kobo site and search for my books you can do that here. Google Play lives here. UK users, let me know if these links work for you!
Any questions or other brilliant suggestions for how UK users can get Carina titles, let me know in the comments!