Rare Book Monthly

Articles - June - 2019 Issue

Microsoft's eBook Store is Closing Its "Doors"

Microsoft's eBooks, from Microsoft's once-upon-a-time bookstore website.

Microsoft's eBooks, from Microsoft's once-upon-a-time bookstore website.

We have heard so many times about booksellers closing their doors, often the victims of new technology. Who needs paper when electrons arrive instantaneously, the choices virtually unlimited? The most valuable books, those antiquarian and rare, are usually free electronically, their copyrights long expired. So, here is a case of turning the tables. An eBook store is closing its "doors." It's not just any bookstore. It comes from one of the most prestigious names in technology - Microsoft. Your little corner bookshop may still be open, but the Microsoft eBook store is going out of business.

 

That sounds like an earth shattering event, at least until you ask the next question - Microsoft has an eBook store? That's the problem. Last I looked, Microsoft had again become the most valuable company on earth, its value approaching $1 trillion. Its value had inched past both Apple and Amazon (though that might have changed by the time you read this). Both of those companies also sell eBooks, lots of them, very successfully. Amazon was born a bookseller, and Apple's loyal audience will buy anything they sell. Microsoft, sadly, has no such history, no such passionate following. They mostly sell software and cloud services, lots of it to enterprise customers. Retail consumers buy their software grudgingly because they have to. Microsoft may be unloved, but there is no realistic alternative. It dominates its fields, but books isn't one of them.

 

They opened their eBook store just two years ago. It was barely a toddler. Actually, this was their third such store, after two earlier attempts failed. Perhaps three strikes will deliver a message. Microsoft just isn't adept at consumer retail. This one was almost doomed from the start. It relies on reading books through their Edge browser. Once upon a time, Microsoft also dominated the web browser field with their Internet Explorer. It became balky and unsafe and Microsoft finally replaced it with Edge. It was too late. Google's Chrome, followed by Firefox, controlled the market, with Opera having a good share in Europe. Edge never got above slightly over a 4% market share. It even trails its own obsolete Internet Explorer. What are the opportunities for selling books when 96% of the population can't read them?

 

There is one major difference when an eBook store, at least one that provides streaming books, closes vs. a traditional print book store. When the print book store closes, you get to keep the books you bought. Not so with Microsoft eBooks. They stream the books to you on demand, or at least they did. Once the store closes, they will stream no more. You will still be able to read your books until sometime in July when it officially closes down. After that they are gone. Once the electrons stop flowing from Microsoft, and they will in July, your books have passed on. No ashes, no dust, not even hibernating electrons. They are gone.

 

At least Microsoft is being reasonably fair. They are refunding customers what they paid for their eBooks. Those who took advantage of the capacity to make margin notes in their books will get an additional $25. The books themselves can be electronically replaced from another vendor. Your margin notes, well, let's hope you didn't have more than $25 worth of them. They will be lost forever. Or, here's an idea. You can copy them down, using an old fashioned pen and paper. That technology still works. But act quickly. July is coming soon.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Lucianus Samosatensis. Dialogoi, editio princeps, second issue, Florence, Laurentius Francisci de Alopa, 1496. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Boccaccio (Giovanni). Il Decamerone, Florence, Philippo di Giunta, 1516. £10,000 to £15,000.
    Forum, July 17: Henry VII (King) & Philip the Fair (Duke of Burgundy). [Intercursus Magnus], [Commercial and Political Treaty between Henry VII and Philip Duke of Burgundy], manuscript copy in Latin, original vellum, 1499. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bible, English. The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New, Robert Barker, 1613. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Bond (Michael). A Bear Called Paddington, first edition, signed presentation inscription from the author, 1958. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Fine Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    17th July 2025
    Forum, July 17: Yeats (William Butler). The Secret Rose, first edition, with extensive autograph corrections, additions and amendments by the author for a new edition, 1897. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, bound in dark green morocco elaborately tooled in gilt and with 3 watercolours to fore-edge, by Fazakerley of Liverpool, 1841. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum, July 17: Miró (Juan), Wassily Kandinsky, John Buckland-Wright, Stanley William Hayter and others.- Spender (Stephen). Fraternity, one of 101 copies, with signed engravings by 9 artists. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Sowerby (George Brettingham). Album comprising 22 leaves of original watercolour drawings of fossil remains of Cheltenham and Vicinity, [c.1840]. £6,000 to £8,000.
    Forum, July 17: Mathematics.- Blue paper copy.- Euclid. De gli Elementi, Urbino, Appresso Domenico Frisolino, 1575. £12,000 to £18,000.
  • Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Book of Hours by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Use of Sarum, in Latin, Southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1450. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Albert Einstein. Autograph letter signed, to Attilio Palatino, on his research into General Relativity, 12 May 1929. £12,000 to £18,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: John Gould. The Birds of Europe, [1832-] 1837, 5 volumes, contemporary half morocco, subscriber’s copy. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Sotheby’s
    Books, Manuscripts and Music from Medieval to Modern
    Now through July 10, 2025
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: Ian Fleming. A collection of James Bond first editions, 8 volumes in all. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.K. Rowling. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, 1997, first edition, hardback issue. £50,000 to £70,000.
    Sotheby’s, Ending July 10: J.R.R. Tolkien. Autograph letter signed, to Amy Ronald, on Pauline Baynes's map of Middle Earth, 1970. £7,000 to £10,000.
  • Rare Book Hub is now mobile-friendly!
  • DOYLE
    Rare Books, Autographs & Maps
    July 23, 2025
    DOYLE, July 23: WALL, BERNHARDT. Greenwich Village. Types, Tenements & Temples. Estimate $300-500
    DOYLE, July 23: STOKES, I. N. PHELPS. The Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909. New York: Robert H. Dodd, 1915-28. Estimate: $3,000-5,000
    DOYLE, July 23: [AUTOGRAPH - US PRESIDENT]FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT. A signed photograph of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Estimate $500-800
    DOYLE, July 23: [ARION PRESS]. ABBOTT, EDWIN A. Flatland. A Romance of Many Dimensions. San Francisco, 1980. Estimate $2,000-3,000.
    DOYLE, July 23: TOLSTOY, LYOF N. and NATHAN HASKELL DOLE, translator. Anna Karénina ... in eight parts. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., [1886]. Estimate: $400-600
    DOYLE, July 23: ROWLING, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. London: Bloomsbury, 2000. Estimate $1,200-1,800
  • Freeman’s | Hindman
    Western Manuscripts and Miniatures
    July 8, 2025
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FRANCESCO PETRARCH (b. Arezzo, 20 July 1304; d. Arqua Petrarca, 19 July 1374). $20,000-30,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF THE VITAE IMPERATORUM (active Milan, 1431-1459). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF ATTAVANTE DEGLI ATTAVANTI (GABRIELLO DI VANTE) (active Florence, c. 1452-c. 1520/25). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. FOLLOWER OF HERMAN SCHEERE (active London, c. 1405-1425). $15,000-20,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. An exceptionally rare, illuminated music leaf from a Mozarabic Antiphonal with sister leaves mostly in museum collections. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Exceptional leaf from a prestigious Antiphonary by a leading illuminator of the late Duecento. $11,500-14,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. CIRCLE OF THE MASTER OF MS REID 33 and SELWERD ABBEY SCRIPTORIUM (AGNES MARTINI?) (active The Netherlands, Groningen, c. 1468-1510). $10,000-15,000.
    Freeman’s | Hindman, July 8. Previously unknown illumination from one of the most renowned Gothic Choir Book sets of the Middle Ages. $6,000-8,000.

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