4 ms·

I recommend buying actual books from local bookstores (bookshop.org can middleman) and then giving them away to a local library when you're finished with them.

I recommend buying actual books from local bookstores (bookshop.org can middleman) and then giving them away to a local library when you're finished with them. Piracy is for children.

bambax 4y ago
Do you mean paper books? They are incredibly impractical: bulky, heavy, unsearchable... I wrote a historical novel last year that I self-published on Amazon, on paper as well as Kindle. To my surprise, 80% of my sales are paper. It's in French, and the French are notoriously conservative, but still... I don't care one way or the other what other people do, but for me the only time I buy paper books is if there is no electronic version, or the ebook is priced something like €15 and it's possible to find a used copy for 50 cents.
- anhncommenter25 4y ago
  I don't think either are _incredibly_ impractical. They're both impractical in different ways to different people. The downsides of e-books are dealing with digital files, the many technological shortcomings of e-ink screens, and the e-book reader itself is a high-value item that attracts unwanted attention. I understand some of those are hand-waived away on a Hacker Forum full of technologists, but they describe the uncanny valley of e-book reading for many book readers. Your novel's statistics don't surprise me!
- kstrauser 4y ago
  I'm reading "Infinite Jest" on my still-new Kobo, and after the 50th time using the built-in dictionary to figure out what I'm seeing, this is my new favorite thing in the world.
themadturk 4y ago
Many of the physical books I want to read are too large to hold comfortably, and have typefaces too small for me to read easily. Neither of these are problems I have with ebooks.
thefurdrake 4y ago
> Piracy is for children. Ignoring peoples' concerns and writing them off with a pejorative is for children.
- anhncommenter25 4y ago
  No, I mean this literally. Children don't have any income and can't access the content as the artist intends. What they do have is lots of free time, which can be used to learn how to run piracy software. They also have not yet developed empathy, so they have no problem stealing from artists. If the highly paid adult readers of Hacker News are pirating artists' creative works, and take offense to me pointing out that piracy is for developing brains who can't afford things, then it's a conversation they need to have with themselves, not me.
  - thefurdrake 4y ago
    No, see, I was speaking literally as well. Being unable to process the argumentative positions of other human beings and factor those in to your responses when interacting with other human beings is a behavior exhibited by developing brains that can't grasp basic adult communication.

I recommend buying actual books from local bookstores (bookshop.org can middleman) and then giving them away to a local library when you're finished with them. Piracy is for children.

bambax 4y ago

Do you mean paper books? They are incredibly impractical: bulky, heavy, unsearchable... I wrote a historical novel last year that I self-published on Amazon, on paper as well as Kindle. To my surprise, 80% of my sales are paper. It's in French, and the French are notoriously conservative, but still... I don't care one way or the other what other people do, but for me the only time I buy paper books is if there is no electronic version, or the ebook is priced something like €15 and it's possible to find a used copy for 50 cents.

anhncommenter25 4y ago
I don't think either are _incredibly_ impractical. They're both impractical in different ways to different people. The downsides of e-books are dealing with digital files, the many technological shortcomings of e-ink screens, and the e-book reader itself is a high-value item that attracts unwanted attention. I understand some of those are hand-waived away on a Hacker Forum full of technologists, but they describe the uncanny valley of e-book reading for many book readers. Your novel's statistics don't surprise me!
kstrauser 4y ago
I'm reading "Infinite Jest" on my still-new Kobo, and after the 50th time using the built-in dictionary to figure out what I'm seeing, this is my new favorite thing in the world.

themadturk 4y ago

Many of the physical books I want to read are too large to hold comfortably, and have typefaces too small for me to read easily. Neither of these are problems I have with ebooks.

thefurdrake 4y ago

> Piracy is for children. Ignoring peoples' concerns and writing them off with a pejorative is for children.

anhncommenter25 4y ago
No, I mean this literally. Children don't have any income and can't access the content as the artist intends. What they do have is lots of free time, which can be used to learn how to run piracy software. They also have not yet developed empathy, so they have no problem stealing from artists. If the highly paid adult readers of Hacker News are pirating artists' creative works, and take offense to me pointing out that piracy is for developing brains who can't afford things, then it's a conversation they need to have with themselves, not me.
- thefurdrake 4y ago
  No, see, I was speaking literally as well. Being unable to process the argumentative positions of other human beings and factor those in to your responses when interacting with other human beings is a behavior exhibited by developing brains that can't grasp basic adult communication.