7 ms·

When an ebook costs over 90% of the price of a hardcover, am I going to buy the ebook, which I can't lend, resell, or give away, or the ebook, which can only be

by jbeales 11y ago

When an ebook costs over 90% of the price of a hardcover, am I going to buy the ebook, which I can't lend, resell, or give away, or the ebook, which can only be read by me? The answer is simple, I'm going to buy whatever the cheapest physical book is. In Canada, with a Kobo, buying from Chapters/Indigo, the trade paperback is often cheaper than the ebook. This is my situation, and it means that the only time I buy an ebook is if I'm extremely motivated to read a book right now and I can't get it digitally from the library. If I had a situation where I was travelling and extremely space-constrained I might pay the premium for an ebook, but that hasn't happened to me yet. All that doesn't mean I don't read ebooks, but that I don't buy them. The ebooks I read come from the library, (I'm a member of two libraries with great ebook selections), or are classics from Project Gutenberg or similar.

chanux 11y ago
To add to the downsides you have mentioned, we practically don't really own them. I mean, almost.
- jbeales 11y ago
  Yeah, "renting for life" doesn't bode well for passing a first edition ebook on to your children ;)
- a3n 11y ago
  I don't buy as many physical books as I used to; mostly fiction, and mostly used. I buy a fair number of ebooks, mostly technical, and mostly from O'Reilly. I love that they're DRM-free; in my case I take the PDF version, but they have other formats. Pakt has a very low-intrusiveness form of "DRM." They print your name on every page of the pdf that you buy, but it's otherwise unrestricted. I don't think Pakt or O'Reilly is going to come after you for sharing an ebook with a family member, and I've given a few copies of O'Reilly books to colleagues, to evangelize both O'Reilly and the tech in question.
  - baghira 11y ago
    Similarly Springer ebooks have your name as a watermark at the bottom of the page, but no "real" DRM. It's a pretty reasonable compromise.
  - fsloth 11y ago
    This. I categorize fiction anyway as "volatile" so I'm not too concerned when the book goes out of my reach (as long as I can read it once). Oreilly, Packt and Pragmatic's books in digital forms have little downsides, and the considerable upside that ever growing pile of physical books is no longer a stress factor (however minor) in a relationship :)
- TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
  I will not rent anything that can be copied losslessly. (Among other things, this is the major reason I don't have netflix.) And I consider anything that can be (legally) taken from me without my consent, or that I cannot legally reencode, to be rented. "Buying" an ebook currently is effectively renting it. If/when that changes, if/when I can actually buy an ebook, I will start buying ebooks.
  - GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain
    - TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
      And now you know (one of the reasons) why I don't own property.
DanBC 11y ago
Before anyone suggests Calibre to rip the DRM: that's not legal and Calibre is a barking dog of awful software. I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been something better - although creating a tool to bypass DRM is probably not a good idea.
- pen2l 11y ago
  What's wrong with Calibre? Works fine for me. Sure the UI is a little much, but once you figure out a routine, it just works. It could be better, but right now it does pretty much anything I could want to do with eBooks. And, sorry, I think your argument about legal | not legal is bunk. If someone has bought an eBook, they help themselves to a pirated copy -- in some ways, that's best of both worlds. It would be quite nice if one could just buy a non-DRM from the get-go, but whatever.
  - jbeales 11y ago
    It's a pretty huge piece of software, megabyte-wise. I've installed & uninstalled it a few times. The ebooks I own are scattered around my hard drive, so it would be smart to put them into some sort of library, but it hasn't happened yet.
- fencepost 11y ago
  Unless things have changed a lot in the last couple years, Calibre doesn't do anything with stripping DRM and actually tries to stay away from it. It's possible that there are plug-ins to do it, but if the Calibre devs curate the plug-ins I wouldn't expect to find those either. Calibre is an ebook library manager. It's clunky in some ways, but I'm not sure what better options exist.
  - kristofferR 11y ago
    DeDRM Tools is a great software package which comes with a Calibre plugin that automatically removes the DRM of the ebooks you add (in addition to standalone DRM removing apps): https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/dedrm-tools-6-3-4-released/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/dedrm-tools-6...
JacobJans 11y ago
You can lend eBooks, in fact, in some ways it is easier. Buy an extra Kindle, put all your books on it, and make it your "loaner" copy. Not that complicated. And you get to loan hundreds of books at once.
- jbeales 11y ago
  Then I have to buy an extra Kindle while not getting a discount for buying the ebook, and I can only lend to one person at a time, and anyone I lend to has to be trustworthy not to make purchases on my account.
  - JacobJans 11y ago
    No, you do not have to trust the other person to not make purchases. You can simply set up the parental controls. I understand why people are downvoting my original comment -- it is very easy to dislike Amazon, for many reasons -- but the fact remains that you can lend eBooks. You just have to put them on a physical device first. And you're allowed to put each eBook on up to 5 devices. That means you could, theoretically lend up to 5 copies at a time. Not just one.
    - jbeales 11y ago
      I didn't realize that parental controls could restrict purchasing, but it makes sense. It's true that you can lend ebooks, there are just a lot more hoops to jump through ;) I can't lend my ebooks, because I don't have a spare device, but that can be changed if I want. If I'm going to pay just as much for the paper book, though, I might as well buy that and skip the extra device management.
- UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
  That is not by design and there are numerous "gotchas" with that, like this third party using that Kindle to buy content on your account, changing your bookmarks, and so on. It might work for "family sharing" (although Amazon actually supports that already), but for sharing with third parties it is risky in my opinion.
zippergz 11y ago
I suppose it depends on your priorities. For me, the value of instant delivery, searchability, zero physical space consumed, and near infinite portability far outweigh the value of lending, reselling or giving away. Maybe I'm selfish, but if I have to choose between something that works really well for me while I have it, and something that is easier to pass on to someone else, I'm going to go with the former. Having both would be better, but if I'm forced to pick one, it's an easy decision...
- jbeales 11y ago
  Zero physical space can be pretty important - I get that - but yeah, priorities. Also, it drives me mad that families have to have some weird hacky system to share ebooks - either have all ereaders use the same Amazon/Kobo/Whatever account, thus messing up any recommendations, or DRM stripping, which is a pain. The times I really want to read a book now the instant delivery is great, but I think there have only been 3 times in the something like 4 years that we've had an ereader in the house that I've wanted a book that badly and the ebook hasn't been available at a library. Edit: I do wish physical books were searchable, and had a built-in dictionary.
- SyneRyder 11y ago
  I agreed with this point of view, having my entire library searchable & available while travelling was the selling point for me... until I received an email from Amazon saying my version of Kindle For Mac will stop working on September 15. And I can't run the new version, because the Macs I'm running Kindle on can't be upgraded beyond Mac OS X 10.7. I have plenty of other devices so I'm not (yet) locked out of my library, and those Macs can be converted to Windows 10 (which does run the latest Kindle software)... but it reminded me it isn't a forever library. I need to make non-DRM'd archive copies of all my digital books if I want to be able to use them for more than 4 to 5 years.
  - gcb0 11y ago
    > 4 to 5 years well, it seems you can't even read them now.
  - 11y ago
atmosx 11y ago
I want my books, especially the technical/expensive ones, to figure out in my bookshelve. "People will read a book either because they like the book or to brag about it." - Bertrand Russel ps. That said, I've bought few eBooks (for Kindle and iPad), the last one is for MiniTest suit (ruby/rails). Didn't read it yet though.
coliveira 11y ago
The only ebooks that I buy are the very cheap ones (free to $3). Anything more than that and I will buy the printed book, because in my opinion e-readers are still not as easy to read as a real book.
skillachie 11y ago
The points you raised are all representative of the current sad stateof the eBook industry where a single platform dominates. Readers like yourself should be free to buy , own and lend eBooks like you would a hardcover book. These believes lie at the core of Bookfusion. We are constantly adding new free books on a daily basis and will be launching our Publishers & Authors platform in Q4 to sell books through our stores. Currently readers have access to over 40,000 + free books - https://bookfusion.com/books https://bookfusion.com/books We have also started to create curated lists. Most recently free machine learning eBooks here https://bookfusion.com/books?list=Free+Machine+Learning+Books https://bookfusion.com/books?list=Free+Machine+Learning+Book... As an avid reader we would appreciate it if you give us some feedback by signing up and using BookFusion. I will through in a complimentary Starbucks gift card for your time Feel free to send me an email at dc@bookfusion.com DISCLOSURE: Founder at BookFusion
serge2k 11y ago
except that I can get the ebook instantly and it takes up zero extra space. It's still easier. Chances are better that if it is out of my price range then (unless it's something I really really want) I'll just say screw it and not bother.

by jbeales 11y ago

chanux 11y ago

To add to the downsides you have mentioned, we practically don't really own them. I mean, almost.

jbeales 11y ago
Yeah, "renting for life" doesn't bode well for passing a first edition ebook on to your children ;)
a3n 11y ago
I don't buy as many physical books as I used to; mostly fiction, and mostly used. I buy a fair number of ebooks, mostly technical, and mostly from O'Reilly. I love that they're DRM-free; in my case I take the PDF version, but they have other formats. Pakt has a very low-intrusiveness form of "DRM." They print your name on every page of the pdf that you buy, but it's otherwise unrestricted. I don't think Pakt or O'Reilly is going to come after you for sharing an ebook with a family member, and I've given a few copies of O'Reilly books to colleagues, to evangelize both O'Reilly and the tech in question.
- baghira 11y ago
  Similarly Springer ebooks have your name as a watermark at the bottom of the page, but no "real" DRM. It's a pretty reasonable compromise.
- fsloth 11y ago
  This. I categorize fiction anyway as "volatile" so I'm not too concerned when the book goes out of my reach (as long as I can read it once). Oreilly, Packt and Pragmatic's books in digital forms have little downsides, and the considerable upside that ever growing pile of physical books is no longer a stress factor (however minor) in a relationship :)
TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
I will not rent anything that can be copied losslessly. (Among other things, this is the major reason I don't have netflix.) And I consider anything that can be (legally) taken from me without my consent, or that I cannot legally reencode, to be rented. "Buying" an ebook currently is effectively renting it. If/when that changes, if/when I can actually buy an ebook, I will start buying ebooks.
- GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminent_domain
  - TheLoneWolfling 11y ago
    And now you know (one of the reasons) why I don't own property.

DanBC 11y ago

Before anyone suggests Calibre to rip the DRM: that's not legal and Calibre is a barking dog of awful software. I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been something better - although creating a tool to bypass DRM is probably not a good idea.

pen2l 11y ago
What's wrong with Calibre? Works fine for me. Sure the UI is a little much, but once you figure out a routine, it just works. It could be better, but right now it does pretty much anything I could want to do with eBooks. And, sorry, I think your argument about legal | not legal is bunk. If someone has bought an eBook, they help themselves to a pirated copy -- in some ways, that's best of both worlds. It would be quite nice if one could just buy a non-DRM from the get-go, but whatever.
- jbeales 11y ago
  It's a pretty huge piece of software, megabyte-wise. I've installed & uninstalled it a few times. The ebooks I own are scattered around my hard drive, so it would be smart to put them into some sort of library, but it hasn't happened yet.
fencepost 11y ago
Unless things have changed a lot in the last couple years, Calibre doesn't do anything with stripping DRM and actually tries to stay away from it. It's possible that there are plug-ins to do it, but if the Calibre devs curate the plug-ins I wouldn't expect to find those either. Calibre is an ebook library manager. It's clunky in some ways, but I'm not sure what better options exist.
- kristofferR 11y ago
  DeDRM Tools is a great software package which comes with a Calibre plugin that automatically removes the DRM of the ebooks you add (in addition to standalone DRM removing apps): https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/dedrm-tools-6-3-4-released/ https://apprenticealf.wordpress.com/2015/09/04/dedrm-tools-6...

JacobJans 11y ago

You can lend eBooks, in fact, in some ways it is easier. Buy an extra Kindle, put all your books on it, and make it your "loaner" copy. Not that complicated. And you get to loan hundreds of books at once.

jbeales 11y ago
Then I have to buy an extra Kindle while not getting a discount for buying the ebook, and I can only lend to one person at a time, and anyone I lend to has to be trustworthy not to make purchases on my account.
- JacobJans 11y ago
  No, you do not have to trust the other person to not make purchases. You can simply set up the parental controls. I understand why people are downvoting my original comment -- it is very easy to dislike Amazon, for many reasons -- but the fact remains that you can lend eBooks. You just have to put them on a physical device first. And you're allowed to put each eBook on up to 5 devices. That means you could, theoretically lend up to 5 copies at a time. Not just one.
  - jbeales 11y ago
    I didn't realize that parental controls could restrict purchasing, but it makes sense. It's true that you can lend ebooks, there are just a lot more hoops to jump through ;) I can't lend my ebooks, because I don't have a spare device, but that can be changed if I want. If I'm going to pay just as much for the paper book, though, I might as well buy that and skip the extra device management.
UnoriginalGuy 11y ago
That is not by design and there are numerous "gotchas" with that, like this third party using that Kindle to buy content on your account, changing your bookmarks, and so on. It might work for "family sharing" (although Amazon actually supports that already), but for sharing with third parties it is risky in my opinion.

zippergz 11y ago

I suppose it depends on your priorities. For me, the value of instant delivery, searchability, zero physical space consumed, and near infinite portability far outweigh the value of lending, reselling or giving away. Maybe I'm selfish, but if I have to choose between something that works really well for me while I have it, and something that is easier to pass on to someone else, I'm going to go with the former. Having both would be better, but if I'm forced to pick one, it's an easy decision...

jbeales 11y ago
Zero physical space can be pretty important - I get that - but yeah, priorities. Also, it drives me mad that families have to have some weird hacky system to share ebooks - either have all ereaders use the same Amazon/Kobo/Whatever account, thus messing up any recommendations, or DRM stripping, which is a pain. The times I really want to read a book now the instant delivery is great, but I think there have only been 3 times in the something like 4 years that we've had an ereader in the house that I've wanted a book that badly and the ebook hasn't been available at a library. Edit: I do wish physical books were searchable, and had a built-in dictionary.
SyneRyder 11y ago
I agreed with this point of view, having my entire library searchable & available while travelling was the selling point for me... until I received an email from Amazon saying my version of Kindle For Mac will stop working on September 15. And I can't run the new version, because the Macs I'm running Kindle on can't be upgraded beyond Mac OS X 10.7. I have plenty of other devices so I'm not (yet) locked out of my library, and those Macs can be converted to Windows 10 (which does run the latest Kindle software)... but it reminded me it isn't a forever library. I need to make non-DRM'd archive copies of all my digital books if I want to be able to use them for more than 4 to 5 years.
- gcb0 11y ago
  > 4 to 5 years well, it seems you can't even read them now.
- 11y ago

atmosx 11y ago

I want my books, especially the technical/expensive ones, to figure out in my bookshelve. "People will read a book either because they like the book or to brag about it." - Bertrand Russel ps. That said, I've bought few eBooks (for Kindle and iPad), the last one is for MiniTest suit (ruby/rails). Didn't read it yet though.

coliveira 11y ago

The only ebooks that I buy are the very cheap ones (free to $3). Anything more than that and I will buy the printed book, because in my opinion e-readers are still not as easy to read as a real book.

skillachie 11y ago

The points you raised are all representative of the current sad stateof the eBook industry where a single platform dominates. Readers like yourself should be free to buy , own and lend eBooks like you would a hardcover book. These believes lie at the core of Bookfusion. We are constantly adding new free books on a daily basis and will be launching our Publishers & Authors platform in Q4 to sell books through our stores. Currently readers have access to over 40,000 + free books - https://bookfusion.com/books https://bookfusion.com/books We have also started to create curated lists. Most recently free machine learning eBooks here https://bookfusion.com/books?list=Free+Machine+Learning+Books https://bookfusion.com/books?list=Free+Machine+Learning+Book... As an avid reader we would appreciate it if you give us some feedback by signing up and using BookFusion. I will through in a complimentary Starbucks gift card for your time Feel free to send me an email at dc@bookfusion.com DISCLOSURE: Founder at BookFusion

serge2k 11y ago

except that I can get the ebook instantly and it takes up zero extra space. It's still easier. Chances are better that if it is out of my price range then (unless it's something I really really want) I'll just say screw it and not bother.