No instant gratification at WH Smith ebook store

I’ve written before about various annoying aspects of the WH Smith eBook store. Now there’s another one to add. I attempted to buy a book to read on my commute this morning, and discovered that it didn’t become available to download, which usually takes a couple of minutes.

Wondering if it was just that title, I bought another, and that too is not available to download – though both show in my list of recent orders.

According to the WH Smith customer service line (who mention problems as part of their automated announcement) they spotted the problem on Saturday, and hope to have it fixed by the end of today. Yet another nudge, for me, in the direction of a Kindle, I fear.

Meanwhile, I mentioned on Twitter last week that there would be a piece on Register Hardware about ebooks and libraries last week; it’ll be up this week instead, and will probably look more at pricing than libraries – but I’ll add some of the material about borrowing eBooks to this site once the main article has gone online.

Update: Tuesday lunchtime – eBook downloads are now available from the WHS store again – including some ‘agency’ titles that are still listed for sale at lower prices than on Amazon.

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