# Mobilereference Books "Not Currently Available"



## askenase13 (Mar 1, 2009)

I thought everyone would find this interesting.  I saw a posting on it yesterday at the Amazon forum and have checked it out myself.

Apparently, most, if not all, of the mobilereference Kindle books are no longer available at the Amazon Kindle store.  They listed as "Not currently available."  These books are mostly public domain books, with the best being large collections for only $4.79 each (complete works of Dickens, Twain, etc).  I have several and they are well formatted and with Table of Contents linked to each individual book.

You will recall that it was the Mobilereference George Orwell books that caused the problem at Amazon a few weeks ago.  (I think these were separate books, not a collection.)  I don't know if this is Amazon or Mobilereference' doing, if there is some screening going on or what.  Mobilereference.com has its own website and apparently sells e-books (a little more expensive than Amazon).  When I checked it out it did NOT have Kindle editions available.  I sent them an e-mail them for some information on this.  When I hear back, I will post an update.


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## Anju  (Nov 8, 2008)

It appears that Amazon is doing a lot of taking down and putting back, i.e., The Cooks' Illustrated.  it will be interesting to see what your response from them is.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

Very interesting, keep us informed!

Betsy


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## LibbyD (Apr 28, 2009)

_This message from MobilReference was posted on the Amazon forum today:_

Our Dear Readers,

On Wednesday August 26, 2009 Amazon.com suppressed all MobileReference books in the Kindle store. We can only guess for what the reason is. All our emails were unanswered and phone calls were not returned.

The most reasonable explanation is that the Amazon action was an outfall of the George Orwell's "1984" story. Let us explain what has happened.

We submit books via MobiPocket.com database. MobiPocket.com sells books worldwide. The book are also automatically uploaded into the Kindle store (MobiPocket is owned by Amazon.com). George Orwell's "1984" is in public domain in Australia. Thus we submitted George Orwell's "1984" to MobiPocket.com for sale in Australia and marked the `Allowed territories' as `au' - Australia only.

Despite the specification of the allowed territory as Australia only, Amazon.com automatically uploaded the book into the Kindle store. The book that was only supposed to be sold in Australia was sold in US. We have emailed Amazon repeatedly asking them to suppress the books copyrighted in US from the Kindle store but received no response from Amazon. Amazon responded on Wednesday, but instead of suppressing a few books Amazon suppressed all 2,000 MobileReference books. Oh well, "A guillotine is the best cure for a headache..."

We think it is a temporary disruption. If you are interested in MobileReference books coming back to the Kindle store faster, please call Amazon. We are sure they will listen to you. Just tell them that you want MobileReference books back in the store. Here is the Amazon Kindle support phone number: 1-866-321-8851

Thank you for your support!


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## Kind (Jan 28, 2009)

Wow, crazy. If what MobileReference states is true, it's Amazon's fault in making 1984 available to everyone.


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## Suzanne (Nov 3, 2008)

I wonder if Amazon will "yank" these collections off our Kindles now that they are not offering Mobilereference books? I have the Dickens collection & absolutely love it. Am reading Tale of Two Cities right now.


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## LibbyD (Apr 28, 2009)

Suzanne said:


> I wonder if Amazon will "yank" these collections off our Kindles now that they are not offering Mobilereference books?


Jeff Bezos has made it clear that there will be no more "yanking". That was an error for which he apologized.


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## Suzanne (Nov 3, 2008)

Thanks. That's good to know. It was getting where I was afraid to turn my wireless on.


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## askenase13 (Mar 1, 2009)

I'm hopful that the Mobilereference books will be back within a few weeks.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

askenase13 said:


> I'm hopful that the Mobilereference books will be back within a few weeks.


I expect they will. I have several showing in my Archive which I can access if I choose so the inconvenience is just that you can't purchase them right now.

Although there seems to be a lot of finger pointing going on, I expect what happened was completely inadvertent and likely just a byproduct of trying to work through the (relatively new) technology to get the books available. Maybe the tech assigned to load the Mobile Reference works didn't realize they weren't all OK for US distribution. Did Mobile Reference tell Amazon to check the codes? Why even send ones they knew weren't legal? Who dropped the ball? Who cares?

Anyway, at this point, rather than go through the listings one by one, it makes sense for Amazon to pull them, review the entire database, and then reload those that are clear.

Really, it seems to me that there's no real fault. Responsibility, yes, but I'm willing to accept that it was honest mistake, which they're trying to fix.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

We've seen this happen with indie authors who publish through mobipocket.  Even though Amazon is not checked as an allowable distribution point, Amazon frequently posts the Mobipocket issue.  The author then uploads the book through Amazon's DTP, so there ends up being two different versions offered on Amazon.  

Sounds like the problem is with mobipocket's software.  Yes, they are an Amazon company, but they are based in France and probably run as a separate division.  They need to coordinate better, and mobipocket needs to fix their software.


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## MarthaT (Mar 3, 2009)

quite interesting


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## L.Canton (Jan 21, 2009)

What this really comes down to is that right or wrong, this because incredibly confusing for the customers. It's just bad marketing.


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## Chad Winters (Oct 28, 2008)

Not to mention heavy handed. I like Amazon, but this new "take major actions without discussing it or letting anyone know" thing is really annoying. Apple annoys me when they do that too. A little notice and explanation would go a long way to keeping customers and publishers happy, which would seem to make sense to any logical person


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Well, I'm lad I have nearly the entire Mobilereference collection now. Also they are sending out the Orwell book to those who had it and had it expunged (or $30 gift certifate or a check), plus we all got an apology from Steve bezos.

Edward C. Patterson


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## ladyvolz (Dec 23, 2008)

I too wrote Amazon after I tried to buy a mobilereference collection I had in my wish list, the collection of Jane Austen books.  Here is their response.

Hello,

I've reviewed our previous correspondence about Mobilereference books.  I 
understand you would like to see the books available, but as we stated 
previously, they do not have the rights to sell the books in the United States. 

I hope this helps to explain things more clearly. We look forward to seeing you 
again soon.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

ladyvolz said:


> I too wrote Amazon after I tried to buy a mobilereference collection I had in my wish list, the collection of Jane Austen books. Here is their response.
> 
> Hello,
> 
> ...


I'm not sure I understand why Jane Austen isn't available. She's been dead for well over 75 years and all her books were published prior to 1927. Her books should be in the public domain. As a matter of fact they are available through manybooks.net and Project Gutenberg, both of which are public domain sites. The only thing Mobi did was put them in a navigable format.

This whole copyright issue seems to be a minefield. I wonder what's going to happen if Google starts selling Jane Austen.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

I believe that what has happened is that Amazon has pulled all the Mobile Reference titles until they can check copyright.  The legal ones they'll put back when that's done.  In the meantime, they have a not completely accurate canned response that they're sending out to people who ask about them.

I would click the "no, not helpful" link and ask again, quoting both your first query and their response.  This time a person will (probably) answer, not a computer.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

Well, Ann - many have called me nutz for downloading kindle books into a massive library much too lage my one person's lifetime, but I'm glad I hit that entire Mobilereference series, because on my Kindle 1 I had those books as single titles from public domain sites, poorly formatted. This feeds my tripartite biblioterian proclivities - one part author, two parts reader and ten parts collector.

Edward C. Patterson


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

Amazon is no longer allowing public domain works to be submitted via DTP, so it's possible that they are removing all the public domain stuff except theirs.


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## Gertie Kindle (Nov 6, 2008)

MobileReference has added the following to their website.



> P. S. We are also updating the ebook store on this website with the latest versions. You should have all collections for your Kindle available from this website by Saturday 29th, 2009.


I'm assuming they meant August 29th. However, the Jane Austen collection is not showing as available for Kindle. I checked a few others, and they aren't available, either.

Searching further, I found the following, although it does say the books are available through Amazon.



> What books are compatible with Kindle?
> All MobileReference ebooks are compatible with Kindle except: The Big English/German/French/Spanish/Italian Encyclopedia and the Concise English Encyclopedia. *However, you need to purchase eBooks from MobileReference website (powered by Handango) or Handango.com. These books do not have embedded digital rights management (DRM) protection and can be copied to Kindle (main memory or SD card).* Books purchased from MobiPocket.com and eBooks.com have DRM protection and will NOT work on Kindle. Also all our books are sold in the Amazon Kindle store. In fact, that is a cheapest way to buy them because Amazon discounts books by about 15%.


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## artsandhistoryfan (Feb 7, 2009)

Gertie Kindle 'Turn to Page 390' said:


> MobileReference has added the following to their website.
> 
> I'm assuming they meant August 29th. However, the Jane Austen collection is not showing as available for Kindle. I checked a few others, and they aren't available, either.
> 
> Searching further, I found the following, although it does say the books are available through Amazon.


 I did a blog update the other night. MobileReference books are back!

I also did an entry/article on the public-domain books issue with Amazon having changed its policy as told to authors.


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## Edward C. Patterson (Mar 28, 2009)

And I ot my George Orwell back as my choice in Amazon's great "Big Brother is watching Your Kindle" embarrassment.

Ed Patterson


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## askenase13 (Mar 1, 2009)

The Mobilereference books are now back at Amazon- same prices.  So the problem  has been resolved.  Again, I recommend their "works" collections as a great bargain at $4.79 for a complete collection of an author's work.


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## happyblob (Feb 21, 2009)

I want Bezos to apologize to the whole board.


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## MamaProfCrash (Dec 16, 2008)

I love the mobilereference works. I downloaded the Math Formula and Statistics book this week.

Yes, I am a dork. Why do you ask?


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