Re: Do you read ebooks?
Originally Posted by
Sage
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I just wonder how you feel about them compared to those printed on paper. If a friend recommended a book to you, and it was only in digital format, would you still purchase it or not?
I pretty much only read using eReaders these days. Just don't see the point of lugging lots of physical books around wherever I go. My Kobo is small, powerful, holds 1000s of books, has a battery that lasts months, has a good backlight so I can read in bed without annoying the missus and is tactile and light. Wife loves eReaders too because it's easy on her hands which ache when she has to keep a real book held open for long periods.
Originally Posted by
Sage
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They are a lot cheaper to produce and the retail price is, therefore, a lot less.
I haven't generally found that to be true TBH. Often the eBook version is more expensive than a hard copy. A quick glance at Amazon shows the Harry Potter paperback books range from £5.25 to £6 whereas the Kindle versions are all £5.99.
Many books that I read many years ago in paperback, still cost a fortune if I select the Kindle version.
The eBook industry has therefore gone very predictably where people said it would some years ago. Once they got a strangle hold on the majority of the reading population they simply made the prices the same or more as the physical books. Captive audience and all that.
Not a great situation in my opinion.
I'm a believer in getting value for money so I'm not a person who is going to pay for something that isn't an actual tangible product except on rare occasion like going to the theatre.
So I'm not paying to hear tunes streamed down the internet which I can't then keep an actual copy of.
Equally I'm not paying subscriptions to things like Netflix or Amazon Prime to have a film streamed to me without being able to then keep a copy of it to replay at any time in the future ad infinitum.
With eBooks I DO get a real electronic copy of a book in a given format. Something that I then own and can keep ad infinitum and re-read time and time again for free.
The issue however is ensuring that I can remove and Digital Rights Management (DRM) from that format so there are no limitations and thankfully there exists a piece of software that does exactly that and which works side by side with CALIBRE, the great eBook library management application you can get for your PC.
So, with the critical DRM issue resolved, yes, I buy everything as an eBook and typically buy from Amazon in their own Kindle (AKZ) format. I then strip off the DRM and convert the books to ePUB format which means they can then be freely read on any device I own whether a KIndle or Kobo or other eReader or a PC eReader application.
If this situation ever changed, and if DRM were not able to be removed, then I would probably buy far less eBooks, or even stop buying them altogether.