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When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
201–210 of 297 posts
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#202I don't buy ebooks, and this is just one reason. This is the complete list: 1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it co…
I pirate ebooks for this reason.
If I like the book or the book has valuable illustration done in color I will purchase the physical copy, otherwise backing up my calibre library according to 3-2-1 is easy peasy.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#203Support your local library!
Many libraries have tons of Ebooks to lend out. It's more convenient than going to the library (since it's all online), but otherwise the same deal. Check out, read it, and return it.
(1 crappy thing is that the library can only lend each copy a set number of times before it is 'destroyed', but I guess that's intended to match how physical books would fall apart. It's not ideal, but still - SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!!)
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#204Earlier quoted context omitted.
All your points are dead on. I'll throw in these cons as well: 5. visibility (as noted by angrygoat) and browseability is terrible. 6. Flipping through an ebook looking for something is impossible. 7. Illustrations or drawings are rendered terribly. The list of pros of ebooks: 1. It's just a better experience. Ebooks are lighter than their equivalent books, easy to use one-handed, fonts can be adjusted, you can carry…
> The objections that you give (1-4) are the ones that are fixable by hoisting the Jolly Roger. I think that that's solving the wrong problem. Just pirating ebooks that are offered under crappy Amazon and B&N style licensing agreements may get you a book that's more palatable to you, but it doesn't do anything to improve the ebook market itself. There are many, many publishers selling DRM-free ebooks out there, and m…
> but it doesn't do anything to improve the ebook market itself
shrug
I don't want to have to change the world first and then read the books I want to read. For the moment I'm willing to pay, but I'm inches away from opting out.
I've even seriously considered building or purchasing a bulk book scanner and just ripping old mass market paperbacks for personal use. Or starting some sort of collective that does this.
The signal that I want to send to Amazon (and, as I understand it, to the publishing houses that desperately want to kill ebooks in general and are trying to do so by forcing Amazon to honor their price floors) is that the prices are just too high. They could dramatically increase revenue simply by lowering the prices. A premium for "early access" is fine -- if I want to buy a book the day that it is released, I'm willing to pay a "hardcover" premium. But I want the option to wait for the "trade paperback" price or the "mass market paperback" price, or the "gently used" price.
The DRM stuff I don't like but I'm not as passionate about, especially since I'm confident that Amazon will stick around a while. 84% of the reason that I accrued a personal physical book library (instead of borrowing from a library or donating or selling books after I've read them) over the years is with the memory of browsing my own parent's book collections and discovering amazing things and wanting to pass that experience on to my children. Amazon has their "family library" concept, so even though the browsing experience is currently terrible, I hope some day it will be better and all the ebooks I have acquired will afford my children the same experience as I had.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#205Earlier quoted context omitted.
Piracy is a good option for popular titles and for more smaller titles usually you can get an epub version outside of the amazon store so buying is still a good option.
I once looked into cracking the DRM on Amazon ebooks (that I had bought legitimately). It worked, but was a PITA.
No idea what you tried but I use the deDRM plugin in Calibre and it is very easy. If gen lib doesn't have the mobi, epub, or pdf I just buy it on amazon, and strip the drm so i can send it directly to my friends.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#206I didn't start buying ebooks from Amazon/Kindle until I realized it was relatively easy to break its DRM. I've never used the files anywhere else but I keep a cracked copy of every purchase just in case. That old story about "1984" being removed gave me too much of a negative impression.
So they still get your money and you deal with the inconvenience? Try buying from https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebooks where possible (DRM-free).
>Try buying from https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebooks where possible (DRM-free).
I have a Kobo. Every book I've bought from there has DRM.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#207I don't buy ebooks, and this is just one reason. This is the complete list: 1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it co…
All your points are dead on. I'll throw in these cons as well: 5. visibility (as noted by angrygoat) and browseability is terrible. 6. Flipping through an ebook looking for something is impossible. 7. Illustrations or drawings are rendered terribly. The list of pros of ebooks: 1. It's just a better experience. Ebooks are lighter than their equivalent books, easy to use one-handed, fonts can be adjusted, you can carry…
> It's just a better experience.
That's rather subjective which is why I left most of this stuff out. Some people really like reading on a kindle or iPad, I don't particularly (the Kindle is "OK").
> Ebooks are lighter than their equivalent books
It depends on the book TBH. A lot will be heavier, many won't. The book I'm currently reading ("Medium Raw" by Anthony Bourdain) is 49g heavier than a kindle (the cheapest in the UK), which for me is effectively the same as 0g in terms of wether I will notice.
I am a relatively strong man, throwing a book or two into my bag doesn't make a difference to me.
Of course, if I were to carry my entire library around that would be a significantly different story :) But then I just pick books I want to read and take them, and if I change my mind later I do something else.
> easy to use one-handed
Never had a problem with this.
> fonts can be adjusted
Never wanted to do this.
> you can search within a book
I rarely want to do this, so it's not a particularly big deal when I can't.
> you have access with wifi to your entire library at any point in time without having to fill up a cramped apartment
I mentioned in another comment, I am lucky in that I don't have that issue where I live. The balance might be altered if I lived in a small Tokyo apartment (for instance) however.
> The objections that you give (1-4) are the ones that are fixable by hoisting the Jolly Roger.
I can buy ebooks and strip the DRM if I want, I tried it (on ebooks I legitimately bought) so I could make sure I always had the book. It was a PITA and didn't (for me) swing the pendulum enough to choose ebooks.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#208I seriously worry about this with Kindle books I get on Amazon. I hope Amazon never goes away, though I guess it could at any time.
I always also get a pirated version of whatever Kindle book I buy to put in my personal electronic library. It's only fair to pay the author, publisher and distributor their price for it, but I also want to be able to re-read that book decades from now. I'm confident that I'll still be able to read a txt or epub file in 2050, but there's no particular reason to think that I would still be able to access my Kindle eBooks then.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
I once looked into cracking the DRM on Amazon ebooks (that I had bought legitimately). It worked, but was a PITA.
No idea what you tried but I use the deDRM plugin in Calibre and it is very easy. If gen lib doesn't have the mobi, epub, or pdf I just buy it on amazon, and strip the drm so i can send it directly to my friends.
It was using Calibre. I may have different ideas about what is a PITA to you though. Whatever, the effort involved, + my other points didn't move the needle far enough for me to choose books.
Re: When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
#210I don't buy ebooks, and this is just one reason. This is the complete list: 1. For some reason they cost a similar amount to print books Sometimes a bit less, sometimes the same, sometimes more. Distributing a physical book means you have to print, handle, store, transport, store again, handle again and transport again (using a simplified model of the journey a book takes to the end user). That costs money, and it co…
All your points are dead on. I'll throw in these cons as well: 5. visibility (as noted by angrygoat) and browseability is terrible. 6. Flipping through an ebook looking for something is impossible. 7. Illustrations or drawings are rendered terribly. The list of pros of ebooks: 1. It's just a better experience. Ebooks are lighter than their equivalent books, easy to use one-handed, fonts can be adjusted, you can carry…
> Flipping through an ebook looking for something is impossible
If you're looking for something in an ebook, wouldn't it be easier and more effective to just search for it?