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I like e-readers now

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Re: I like e-readers now

#241

Post by bo1024 »

detritus wrote: post #36
AdmiralAsshat wrote: post #22

> I had a rather frustrating time setting up the damn device – it’s annoying to have to connect to wifi, make a Kobo account, make an Overdrive account, and search for books with a terrible response time to text input, and it’s especially annoying when you enter the wrong wifi password multiple times and end up restarting the device because you’re so convinced you have the right password before finally realizing your…

> The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. Sounds like a feature to me - perfect!

The problem is you can't use the Kobo until you create an online account and connect it to the internet. After that, though, you can do airplane mode forever.

Re: I like e-readers now

#242

Post by Otek »

BeetleB wrote: post #159
Otek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebooks are so cheap these days, that it's a shame to pirate them.

I'm not sure what you mean by "cheap". A lot of nonfiction is $15-50. Also, when I buy physical books, I often buy used ones. At local used book stores, I can often get them for $5 or less.

I mean, while the prices of paper books and ebooks don't differ much after release, the discounts on ebooks, are often much higher than on paper books. I've seen great books for a dollar more than once.

Re: I like e-readers now

#243

Post by Ishmaeli »

I bought a Kindle in 2012 but I think I'm finally done with it. I don't have any problem with the device or the format, I'm just tired of all the typos in ebooks.

Yes, printed books have the occasional typo, but they seem much more prevalent in ebooks. I think there are just a lot of books out there for which the only electronic copy is an optical scan, and as good as OCR is, the process still introduces errors.

I feel ripped off when I come across a typo an ebook that's not in the printed version. It already feels like a stripped down version of the product—I'm only getting the text, not the material assets of a real life book—and now I discover it's an inferior version of the text to boot? No thanks.

Re: I like e-readers now

#244

Post by Otek »

xur17 wrote: post #73
Otek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebooks are so cheap these days, that it's a shame to pirate them.

I realize it's irrational given the price of ebooks, but the lack of "ownership" of the books makes me a lot less interested in buying them.

It depends on where you buy the book. Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. If you buy through amazon, you are tied to that store unfortunately, but the situation is similar to games. It is very rare now to buy a game that is not part of some account.

Re: I like e-readers now

#246

Post by Otek »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #146
Otek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebooks are so cheap these days, that it's a shame to pirate them.

cheap? amazon india at least has ebooks priced equal to or more than paperbacks which makes no rational sense other than that amazon is price gouging. for a physical paper back, i was told that the author is lucky to get 5% of the sales price. Would it be hard to price an ebook lets say 10%, 20% of the paperback with 100% of the proceeds going to author. or does that price canibalize the paperback industry so they pr…

Printing a book is cheap. Very cheap. Most of the cost is prepress, proper typesetting, proofreading. There is no reason why ebooks should be noticeably cheaper than paper books, because the costs are not where people expect them to be.

Re: I like e-readers now

#247

Post by Otek »

2Gkashmiri wrote: post #144
Otek wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebooks are so cheap these days, that it's a shame to pirate them.

i borrow from overdrive. i wrote that. i pirate stuff not on overdrive because buying from amazon ties me to their devices and they give me a "license" to read on their devices only. i want mp3 of ebooks. i pay for an ebook and get a epub file. is that too hard?

So don't use Amazon. ebooks.com sells epub files. Was that too hard to find?

Re: I like e-readers now

#248

Post by xur17 »

Otek wrote: post #244
xur17 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize it's irrational given the price of ebooks, but the lack of "ownership" of the books makes me a lot less interested in buying them.

It depends on where you buy the book. Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. If you buy through amazon, you are tied to that store unfortunately, but the situation is similar to games. It is very rare now to buy a game that is not part of some account.

> Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself.

Do you know what stores offer that? Last time I looked around it was mostly small shops with very minimal book offerings.

Re: I like e-readers now

#249

Post by Otek »

xur17 wrote: post #248
Otek wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on where you buy the book. Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. If you buy through amazon, you are tied to that store unfortunately, but the situation is similar to games. It is very rare now to buy a game that is not part of some account.

> Many stores will just send you a mobi or epub file so you can archive that yourself. Do you know what stores offer that? Last time I looked around it was mostly small shops with very minimal book offerings.

I can name two (never used any of them, I'm going full Amazon)

ebooks.com but you have to look if the book you like has an unencrypted epub versions

smashwords.com

Re: I like e-readers now

#250

Post by leppr »

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #71
detritus wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Kobo is an excellent reading device, but it is a very poor internet browsing device. Sounds like a feature to me - perfect!

Apparently these days you can release a half-baked product and get away with it by saying "the obvious lack of features is so that you can have a focused, distraction-free experience!" or something similar.

Kobo can get away with it because their product is hackable. It's fine to release a platform with slightly too limited functionality if other people can then build on it.
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