5 ms·

I had a brief fling with ebooks, but it was over pretty much as soon as it started. I will still break out my kindle every now and again I am sure, but I am not

• lsc 11y ago
  >- I feel that in many cases, ebook prices are just ripping me off. I think this is really informative for people who price things, not just for the ebook subject. e-book prices are usually lower than print-book prices. But people feel ripped off, because they know it took the publisher zero marginal effort to make their copy. I mean, I've been on the other side of this, too... I was really surprised when my royalty check came, because if someone buys the e-book alone, I get a massively higher royalty than if someone buys the print book. - so if you are the sort who thinks the author should get paid more and the publisher should get paid less, then e-books are for you. but... really, the interesting thing is just how intuitive the 'labor theory of value' is- we expect the price we pay for a thing to have something to do with the effort and capital that went into making it, and we feel ripped off when it doesn't.
• HelloMcFly 11y ago
  I'm pretty much an exclusive e-book reader anymore. They're almost always cheaper unless buying used (not something I tend to do) though the difference is very marginal, my reader is waterproof, it supports the only format I care about (ePub), and I backup all of my books on my computer anyway which removes DRM and renders moot fears of losing my books. Most important to me: I hate carrying books around. Even so, I wish I could pay $3 extra and just get a physical and digital copy. The only two things I really miss from physical books are 1) ease of lending to others and 2) casual perusal of the collection that call to mind the experience of reading it.
• Turing_Machine 11y ago
  "I love reading in the bath, risky with an electronic device." Large ziploc bag. Problem solved. Not to mention that the cheapest Fire tablet is down to about $50, which isn't all that much more than a single hardback book (bath water doesn't do those any good, either, especially with the crap "binding" that publishers use on "hardback" books nowadays).
  • untog 11y ago
    the cheapest Fire tablet is down to about $50, which isn't all that much more than a single hardback book Yes, but the Fire tablet does not come with any books. You still have to pay at least 1/5 of the price of the tablet just for an eBook.
    • coldtea 11y ago
      That's beside the point, since if the Fire dies, you still have the books you bought on your account, whereas if your hardback book is soaked, it's gone for good.
      • Turing_Machine 11y ago
        Yes. Same thing if your house catches on fire. Your paper library is just going to be gone, while your Kindle books will still be there safe and sound.
    • Turing_Machine 11y ago
      "You still have to pay at least 1/5 of the price of the tablet just for an eBook." No, you don't. http://www.gutenberg.org/ http://www.gutenberg.org/
      • isolate 11y ago
        It's also easy to get copyrighted ebooks for no money. You can even go through the exercise of borrowing them from libraries if your moral principles would be compromised.
• aschampion 11y ago
  To add to these: - Even in a walled garden like Kindle, arbitrary fragmentation of the platform. Books that my Kindle device is technically capable of displaying are locked to iOS/Android Kindle app only, etc. Publishers meddling in spaces they don't understand. - Stagnation of the eInk device market. Since the Kindle DX 5 years ago, I can "upgrade" to a much smaller device to get a backlight or snappier refresh, but my only choice for a similar or larger device lacks both, costs $800, and because it's from Sony can't do Kindle books and may already be a dead platform. - Difficult if not impossible to lend books. This isn't just about saving money; the chances of a friend reading a book based solely upon a recommendation are much lower than the chances of them reading a book that you place in their hands, simply because of the lower initiative barrier. That said I prefer ebooks for the majority (by volume) of my reading, more so for fiction than non-fiction. Or, factoring that a bit, I prefer ebooks for light or recreational reading and physical books for more focused or technical reading. This may be related to the limitations of eInk devices, though, since larger displays, faster refresh/annotation, and meta-reading features are more important for technical reading than for linear fiction.
• tzs 11y ago
  > I feel that in many cases, ebook prices are just ripping me off. The material costs of a physical book are probably well under $0.50, and the manufacturing is done by automated machines so that should add very little to the marginal cost. Shipping and storage could very well be the biggest contribution to the marginal cost of a physical book. The costs for a book other than manufacturing, shipping, and storing should be about the same for ebooks and physical books. Thus as long as an ebook is maybe $1 or so less than the print edition it seems I'm getting a fair deal (or rather I'm getting as fair a deal as I'd get with the print edition...). Most Kindle books that I've been interested in were priced under the physical editions by at least that much.
  • copperx 11y ago
    > The material costs of a physical book are probably well under $0.50 It's low, but not that low. More like $4 to $5. More if printed in full color.