Non-Megacorp Ebook Shop?
I'm new to the Ebook game and confused about the ecosystem. Do Amazon, Rakuten, and Barnes and Noble really control the whole market? Anywhere I can buy big titles not from big companies?
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In general, check the see if the author sells direct. Usually the best way to cut out the middleman.
If you're not aware, you can borrow ebooks from you local library.
eBooks.com
For audiobooks, try Libro.fm (they can sell through or donate to your local bookstore).
Most (mega) publishers list their wares on their sites (e.g. Penguin) and will link out to where you can buy.
I think Apple Books has gotten better (fair) since they got slapped for price fixing on publishers. They’re also looking at AI generated audiobooks as an attempt to compete and pull market share away from Amazon/Audible, as far as I can tell. That’s good for the market perhaps but perhaps raises concerns for pushing not famous voice actor/narrators out of work. A concern about AI overall though, I suppose.
Anyway, my preference for either format is my library online. I recommend that option over anything else.
I’m thinking no.
Because ebooks require an infrastructure
I do buy dead trees from abebooks; bookshop.org
How do you mean? I understand that printing a book on paper is a lot of work for someone who doesn't already have all the infrastructure to do that, but an ebook is just a digital file. I'm not a writer so i've never made one, but it should be pretty easy to format your book as an ebook and then put that file on the internet for people to buy or just download.
To answer part of your question- Yes an ebook is just a file. Yes iBooks allows you to create an ebook of your own. Yep easy.
— but— rarely to never will a author (maybe Cory Doctorow) make it available easily from a non big book publisher liked in site.
But — big authors usually get there because they sign up with a big publisher who IRL can advertise and get it out there.
So small authors, could self publish an ebook easily but getting people to know about it is hard… Hence unlikely to ever see a Stephen King type publish ebooks like that.
I do tend to use Kobo, but other places I’ve bought* books.
Smashwords.com Ebooks.com https://angryrobotbooks.com Feedbooks.com
*excluding legal free sources.
A quick Google search looks like Kobo may work for you.
Kobo is Rakuten
Oh damn.
Have you checked the online stores of the regular book stores in your country? In Sweden I think both (yes, all two! Adlibris and Bokus) of the major book stores sell ebooks. For some titles they're actually better than the Kobo store (especially for classic books and nordic publishers I think).
Personally I'm happy with the Kobo store and Libby/Overdrive though. Anything that's not Amazon is fine in my book, and I really like that progress is synced between phone and e-reader for the few times that I don't have my reader with me.
It's not a store but you should check out Project Gutenberg. It's all public domain stuff in the USA, but maybe read up on your country's copyright laws if you want to be sure before you get any books there.