E-book x Books

[Defacto]

Ahoy,

I'm planning to buy a book (Wild Cards I, to be more accurate) and I ended up running into the possibility of e-book. Does anyone here use any e-books service? I wonder if I get a virtual copy or I'll have to always access using internet connection.


Defacto

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I have a Kindle, and you can get Kindle for your computer. There are some services that offer e-books in other formats, but I've never understood how those work unless it's a PDF.

One of the things to consider is how many times you expect to read the book and/or if it's part of a series. If you only plan to read it once and very soon after getting it, the public library would be your best bet. Most of the stuff on my Kindle is what I either can't get in physical form for a reasonable price or can't get in physical form at all. Plus there are occasional deals where you can get really good discounts on a book or story, sometimes even free.

 

[CKS]

Plus there are occasional deals where you can get really good discounts on a book or story, sometimes even free.

Bookbub will send you a nice list of free or cheap (<$3) books (in whatever categories you select) each day. I've downloaded a bunch, but not read any. My mom has read several. I'd say that about once a week one of the books is by an author I've heard of.

My library has a bunch of e-books that they lend out, though I've never used either of their e-book-lending services

All the sellers of e-books I'm familiar with give you an electronic copy, rather than a read-online situation, but I wouldn't want to guarantee that they all do.

I have a Kindle, but I've never bought anything from amazon for it. I read free stuff - fanfic and stuff from Baen, mostly - and stuff I've purchased from Baen and Smashwords.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Bookbub will send you a nice list of free or cheap (<$3) books (in whatever categories you select) each day. I've downloaded a bunch, but not read any. My mom has read several. I'd say that about once a week one of the books is by an author I've heard of.

My library has a bunch of e-books that they lend out, though I've never used either of their e-book-lending services

All the sellers of e-books I'm familiar with give you an electronic copy, rather than a read-online situation, but I wouldn't want to guarantee that they all do.

I have a Kindle, but I've never bought anything from amazon for it. I read free stuff - fanfic and stuff from Baen, mostly - and stuff I've purchased from Baen and Smashwords.

As far as fanfic goes, fanfiction.net and An Archive of Our Own are my go-to places for most of it, as well as A Teaspoon and an Open Mind for Doctor Who stories. Orion Press and the Valjiir Continuum both have excellent archives of Star Trek stories (adult content, so not suitable for minors).

Most of the stuff I've bought for the Kindle has either been free or really cheap (like 99 cents or $1.99). The most expensive thing I ever bought for the Kindle was still under $10. I get a "Kindle daily deal" email every day, with a selection of books/stories that are either free or heavily discounted. One nice thing about this is that you can often download the first chapter of a book for free, before deciding whether or not to buy it. So that's what I've done, and then went ahead and bought the physical book after deciding I wanted to read the rest of the story.

Other sources you might check out include Project Gutenberg - classical literature that's downloadable in a variety of formats, all completely free.

If Roman history interests you, there's a forum I belong to that has occasional access to free downloads of Roman history-themed books.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I used Kindle software on my tablet and it was absolutely terrible. It was just plain crap to be honest, which was the last thing I expected. I think using an actual kindle is probably a much, much better experience but I don't own one or have tried it.

I know Amazon Prime has a lending library and as others mentioned, some local libraries have e-book lending services. Google Play also has a lot of free e-books but they are old, out-of-copyright books. Still, you can pick up some classics.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The only thing that really annoys me about the Kindle is that there's no guarantee that the book/story won't be riddled with typos. You can highlight and report them in hopes that someone will eventually fix them, but it's a pain. I absolutely gave up on one of the science fiction anthologies I bought, because half the story looked like someone hit random keys when it was uploaded.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh well I didn't get enough kindle books to notice that, just one textbook. But I had such a bad experience with the kindle app itself that I won't do it again and I'm not going to buy a dedicated e-book reader (like an actual kindle) anytime soon.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Textbooks probably get a better proofreading effort than a cheap collection of time-travel stories that cost less than $2.00.

 

[Luckymoose]

In theory an ebook should be cheaper than all other options (HarperCollins and others disagree with this. You can find new releases with ebooks as expensive as the hardcover.) and you get the file forever. Buyer beware of self-published works containing typos, grammatical errors, formatting errors, lack of quality control, etc. Some major publishers slack off on ebook copies too, especially of older books being re-released. But most new releases are tidy. Read on an e-ink device, though, cause normal screens suck eggs for long form reading. Also you can download a program such as Calibre that allows you to change the format of the file (and organize a library) for different devices, should you ever need to.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

In my limited experience with e-textbooks, they are somewhat cheaper but only when you agree to essentially 'rent' the copy. If you want a copy to have forever, then you are going to pay the same price as a print book. Which is ludicrous and goes to show how messed up the textbook market is.


Anywhoo my problem with Kindle software on a tablet wasn't the screen per se, but the fact that the software couldn't resize it or re-orient it with any adequacy and also the page turning functions were all kinds of messed up. It was both too sensitive and not sensitive enough, flipping through pages when I didn't want to and then not turning when I wanted. It was just a mess, though as I've said before, I'm sure the 'real' Kindle experience is much, much better.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The same price to basically rent the book as to buy it?

There is no way I would rent a textbook unless it was something I didn't need for very long, or very much of (of course I'm thinking library books, not ebooks).

I buy a fair number of reference books on classical history, writing, and science fiction. There is no way I would trust those to anything electronic. Sure, it means that even 3 DOZEN bookcases/shelves in my apartment aren't enough, but at least I can put my hands on the books whenever I want to.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Oh I hear you. My main reason for getting an e-textbook was so that I didn't have to lug a physical textbook around. I ditched paper notes entirely and use my tablet for that. Ditching textbooks was the next step but they don't actually sell many e-textbooks. You're lucky if you can get 50% of your textbooks digitally. And then add in the pricing/rental/format nonsense and yeah, it's not that much better than just lugging around a real book.

 

[Evie]

One upside I've found to e-book is that while they're grossly overpriced compared to paperbacks (ie, same price as, which is overpriced considering they're far less costly to produce), they're usually available at paperback price right off the bat, when the hardcover edition (which is significantly pricier) comes out.

For series I'm not THAT much into, it's a notable plus. (If I'm really into a series, of course, I just like having the hardcovers anyway)