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Books are not too expensive

millersbookreview.com

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Re: Books are not too expensive

#81

Post by cyberpunk »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #47
A_D_E_P_T wrote: post #5

At some point you just have to move to Ebooks. It's way cheaper (usually ~6x cheaper) and it's much more convenient, as you always have your entire library with you. Sometimes even in duplicate, i.e. on more than one device at the same time, in the same place. I was very reluctant to make the move at first, as I love everything about physical books -- their feel, the way they smell, the cover art -- but I was accumul…

During its early days (2009), an investor showed me a white Kindle reading a book. This was India, long before Amazon was even introduced to our country. I decided to get mine a few years later. I decided to move bag and baggage to ebooks. After some time, I got one for my daughter too. Then the Kindle Oasis was, to me, one of the best ways to read books. But I realize that I have a better and cozier feeling holding…

There’s this great feeling standing infront of a couple loaded billy bookcases trying to pick what to read that i just don’t get from looking at the directory listing on my kobo. (I can reccommend a kobo, it runs linux and with koreader you can even open a terminal emulator on it, ssh into it etc).

I like and use both, but yeah the feeling just isn’t the same reading on a screen vs a nice folio society hardcover.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#82

Post by JKCalhoun »

eBooks (ePubs) are too expensive.

I assumed (naively) that the electronic version would be the cost of the pulp version minus the cost of the pulp and printing and also minus the cost of shipping.

Author, publisher, editor still get their same cut.

In fact with DRM, the price should even be less that the above since there are no used-book sales lost.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#83

Post by rcxdude »

Jtarii wrote: post #64
vhanda wrote: post #4

The bigger problem for me is buying Ebooks without DRM, which are cheaper than the paperback. I see no reason why I should be paying the same (or often more) than the paperback version. Just let me buy the ebook and let me own it. Right now, after pirating it, I have to find the author's patreon / something and contribute some money that way. It shouldn't be this hard to give someone money.

>Right now, after pirating it, I have to find the author's patreon / something and contribute some money that way. It shouldn't be this hard to give someone money Why not just buy the thing you are pirating? That would seem to be the easiest way to give someone money.

Because significantly less of the money you pay goes to the person who wrote the book.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#84

Post by randusername »

It's nice to own books. Read them multiple times, dog-ear the pages, scribble in the margins, risk reading them in the pool.

But for the price conscious general reader just inter-library loan.

If you want to buy To Kill A Mockingbird or The Hobbit be my guest, but any library in the US would have a few copies of those.

Public libraries are awesome. Use it or lose it.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#85

Post by everdrive »

Books are not too expensive, but many books are too long. I don't mean that it's bad for books to be long, but a lot of books have about 50-60 pages worth of real content, and editors and publishers demand that fluff is added because people don't want to pay ~$20 for a 50 page book. But by adding the fluff they did not actually increase the value per dollar, but instead wasted a small amount of their time.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#86

Post by greenie_beans »

indigodaddy wrote: post #34

eBay->title search->sort price low to high-> usually results in under $5 free shipping for almost any oldish book. Also for some reason the sellers on eBay are almost always cheaper (sometimes significantly) than their Alibris/Abe/Amazon storefront counterparts. Same with Thriftbooks, cheaper on their eBay storefront than direct, especially since TB raised their free shipping minimum...

bookfinder.com is what you're looking for

Re: Books are not too expensive

#87

Post by vidarh »

rcxdude wrote: post #83
Jtarii wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Right now, after pirating it, I have to find the author's patreon / something and contribute some money that way. It shouldn't be this hard to give someone money Why not just buy the thing you are pirating? That would seem to be the easiest way to give someone money.

Because significantly less of the money you pay goes to the person who wrote the book.

To quantify that: If the author has self-published on Amazon, 35%-70% goes to the author. (70% above a certain price threshold and assuming the e-book is exclusive to KDP) If published via a publisher, the author is more likely to be getting 10%-15%.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#88

Post by malfist »

mrweasel wrote: post #79

Many of the comments talks about the price of books like those required for college courses, and the article don't really make a big deal of this, but the statistic it uses does specifically say "recreational books". If your first language is English I assume that this is less of an issue, but the problem is that not enough books are being translated anymore. Translation is expensive, and no, AI cannot do this very w…

> If you want to learn something new, you better learn to read English

Do you really think that non-fiction is exclusively written in english?

Re: Books are not too expensive

#89

Post by gambiting »

WaitWaitWha wrote: post #36

To be fair, this article is partially true. Now, allow me to pour some gasoline/petrol/benzine around this thread. Have you purchased a college course required book recently? There is a market monopoly by Pearson, Wiley,Cengage, and McGraw. Buy the eBook, or the actual book with a CD in the back, but cannot access the pictures because the code can be use only once ! (often the codes do not work at all) Updated every…

Where I studied in the UK the university provided all books. Which meant they had a lot more negotiating power, because they wouldn't pay £300 a book nor allow a professor to have a £300 book as a requirement for the course. So companies had to make sure their material was within the price range that universities were willing to pay for it.

Re: Books are not too expensive

#90

Post by gottagocode »

everdrive wrote: post #85

Books are not too expensive, but many books are too long. I don't mean that it's bad for books to be long, but a lot of books have about 50-60 pages worth of real content, and editors and publishers demand that fluff is added because people don't want to pay ~$20 for a 50 page book. But by adding the fluff they did not actually increase the value per dollar, but instead wasted a small amount of their time.

Unfortunate, I would pay $30 for 50~60 pages of real content.
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