Have I wasted my money?

[catharine]

I have am having a problem with my ereader ( sony) and need advice. I am an avid reader with usually 2-3 books on the go at once which is why I thought the e-reader would be great as it would cut back on the number of books I have. I rarely, if ever bought new books. I found them all at secondhand shops, yard sales etc and never spent more the a few dollars max. Occasionally, if I couldn't find what I want I would buy it new but this was not often.

Since having the e-reader I find that I am not using it as I can't find any decent books without paying full store price. For example - i just bought a book for $2 and the e-version is $24.99. I am wondering if I have wasted my money ( my husband certainly thinks so). I have checked out various sites and can't seem to find any with decent, newish title and authors nor the non-fiction titles that interest me. Can anyone help or is my husband correct? I have found good titles form the Singapore International Library however they are all borrowed and expire after about 2 weeks.

[jehane]

Hi Catharine and welcome to MobileRead. There is no 2nd hand market in ebooks, because they are a digital product. So books are bought "new" each time. You will also find that the major publishers (not sure where you are in the world - publishers vary) have set pricing, so the stores really have no option to discount. Depending on where you are, you may run into the problem of geographic restrictions, where books are not e-published in your region so you can't buy them, even if they are published elsewhere.

The Singapore Library is exactly that - a library. As with paper books, ebooks are borrowed and must be returned. If you were able to keep them permanently then they would essentially be giving the books away for free! Not a viable business option.

I'm also an avid reader and I'm happy to borrow books from the library - both paper and digital. I'm also happy to return library books once I've read them. If it's a good enough book that I want my own copy then I will buy it. I also read a lot of free books by independent authors - they can be hit or miss, but occasionally there's a good one. If you watch and wait, there are often sales and coupons for books. Kobo has regular discounts, although be aware that the coupons cannot be used for books for which the publisher has set a fixed price.

Only you can decide whether you've wasted your money. I know I certainly haven't.

[spindlegirl]

Welcome! I too, got sticker shock when I looked in the e-bookstore to find "oldies" priced quite high. (I can understand new release prices being a bit high, but it is now no longer 1992 and I shouldn't pay 10 dollars for a badly OCRed book).

I get solace in the free classics available for download from Mobile Read's library, Project Gutenberg, and the digital media lending library in my local area. I also seek out freebies and good deals where I can. They often have some good deals in the "Deals, Freebies and Resources" forum.

[HarryT]

You have awfully expensive taste in books. There are very few ebooks that cost $25. eBooks typically cost well under $10, except for new releases when the paper book is only out in hardback. Wait for the paperback release and the ebook will fall correspondingly.

You did make a mistake if you were expecting ebooks to be as cheap as 2nd-hand books; that's never going to be the case (except for public domain classics).

[Elfwreck]

Catherine,
Bargain-hunting ebooks is a bit more complicated than looking for low-cost paperbacks. While there are thousands, maybe millions, of self-published ebooks for free (and some of those are very good), just grabbing random free ebooks means wading through a lot of horrible crap. (And I say that as someone who doesn't mind wading through the digital slushpile; if you prefer to forego the dubious joys of learning twelve new ways to inflict commas into sentences, you'll want to stick to books that have at least been waved past an editor.)

If you mention what kinds of books you like, people can try to recommend sources for those genres.

The Baen Free Library is an excellent place to start--Baen releases a number of its titles free; often these are the first in a series, to entice you to read more. They've also put out a number of CDs bundled with new hardcovers, which contain an entire series or collection of ebooks--and given permission for the CDs to go online. The Fifth Imperium has the whole set. All of Baen's other ebooks are available at their store for $6 or less each.

If you like romance, AllRomanceEbooks has a huge collection. I stick to the ones without DRM. ("Digital Rights Management," which can only be read on registered devices; you have to make sure your account settings are all set up correctly before you buy and it can be difficult to transfer those rights to a new computer or reading device.) They have a newsletter with regular freebies and low-cost promo titles.

For some other genres, Backlist eBooks is a site put together by authors who reclaimed the rights to their published books and are self-publishing titles under their own terms. Most of them are low cost and available in several formats.

You can check out Mobileread's own Deals & Freebies forum, in which people post bargains they've found, and usually mention which bookstore (and therefore filetype) in the title.

I read a lot of fanfiction, which is free, and the Archive of Our Own has an easy "download-as-ebook" option for all its fic. If you're new to fanfic, pick a fandom you like, sort by # of hits to see what's most popular, and choose something with a lot of kudos or comments or both. (There are excellent works with low hit counts as well, but figuring out which ones those are is a bit more hit-or-miss.)

Nonfiction's harder; less nonfic gets converted to ebook, and there are fewer independent publishers releasing those titles. (The larger publishers, as far as a lot of ebook fans can figure out, are really trying to kill the ebook industry; they keep prices high in order to reduce sales to "prove" that there's more demand for paper.) Googling for "free nonfiction ebooks" will get you links to lists of suggestions, but there's no neat repository of recent low-cost nonfic.

I keep finding fascinating texts at Archive.org, but those are definitely not recent. (Also, they're not in the best format for ereaders; most are scanned PDFs that don't resize well.)

I hope you find some ebook sources that work for you. I have an older Sony, and I read on it *constantly*--mostly free ebooks, and my personal cap for fiction is $6 per book. I get a lot from Smashwords, but I don't mind wading through the digital slushpile.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I read a lot of fanfiction, which is free, and the Archive of Our Own has an easy "download-as-ebook" option for all its fic. If you're new to fanfic, pick a fandom you like, sort by # of hits to see what's most popular, and choose something with a lot of kudos or comments or both. (There are excellent works with low hit counts as well, but figuring out which ones those are is a bit more hit-or-miss.)

This is cool. I am just starting to get into fanfiction, and had not heard of this site. I'll also pass the site to my daughter.

Catherine,
I too, have a "general" price range of about 4-7 dollars for books I buy (although that is not inflexible if I decide I want a book badly enough)... so I set a budget accordingly - Once in a while I will see a title on my wishlist go on sale for about that much, but it is often a matter of waiting and watching price fluctuations. I have a Sony T1 which reads epubs, prior to that I had a Kobo Touch, so I have accounts at both the stores and often price compare for titles I like.

Inmesh.com also is a pretty good place to price compare for books and has listings of recent freebies.

[Asawi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You have awfully expensive taste in books. There are very few ebooks that cost $25. eBooks typically cost well under $10,...

Only true for English language books. I don't know the location of the OP, but I do know that for Swedish language eBooks price is usually around $25, about the same as the hardcover and much more expensive than paperback. Even English language books are often a little bit more expensive (or not available at all) for us that aren't in USA (or other English language country) due to georestrictions.

I suspect this is true for other languages as well.

Om the other hand our (Swedish) libraries are organized differently than Overdrive and there are no waiting times at all for eBooks.

Wherever the OP is located, do look into the library option some more! It's so convenient to check out books online and then have them on your reader! Yes, they expire, but with some planning and taking advantage of keeping multiple books on your wish/hold list it's not too hard to always have something to read. I sometimes do the same as when looking through a paper-book-bargain-bin: See what's available for immediate checkout and find something totally unexpected. "OK, don't know I want to read something like this, but since it's available I might as well give it a go."

[rhadin]

When I first got my Sony 505 I thought ebooks would be cheaper than pbooks. The ones I was interested in weren't. So I decided to change my reading habits. I never buy an ebook of a New York Times bestseller. Rarely worth the price or the time to read.

Instead, I "buy" most of my books at Smashwords. I've discovered a lot of well-written indie author ebooks at $2.99 and less, most often free, at Smashwords. I think if you are only interested in newly released bestsellers, an ereader is a mistake. If you are willing to try writing from unkown authors, then the device is great because there is a lot of free and inexpensive writing available that is very good.

[elemenoP]

If you had hoped to replace your paper books with all ebooks, it looks like that's not going to happen, because you are right, ebooks are mostly expensive. But if you think of your reader as a supplement to your paper books, it is still useful. Start putting books on hold at the Singapore library. In a few weeks, they will start coming in and then you will have free books on your ereader. In the meantime, keep on reading your paper books! (and keep buying the $2 books you find.) If you keep on putting books on hold, you will keep on getting books later (although I have to warn you: there will come a day when all your holds come in at once, and you won't be able to read them all in 2 weeks! Yes, it's frustrating!).

And also, you have to keep checking out the free and cheap ebook blogs or this site's "Deal and Freebies" forum. Most are crap, but there are occasional gems. If that doesn't sound fun to you, or you are the type to "need it now" rather than waiting for library books to come in, then maybe the reader is not for you.

eP

[HomeInMyShoes]

^Searching for used paper books is not dissimilar to finding e-book deals and there's a lot less footwork involved.

I read paper books bought cheap, paper books bought expensive, paper books from the library, free public domain e-books, and purchased e-books. Only about 40% of what I read is on the e-reader, but I still like having one a lot. It just opens up another stream for finding books. I'm not expecting the e-reader to replace all of my reading options any time soon.

I don't think you've wasted your money, but it might be a little while before you realize the value of your purchase.

[jehane]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You have awfully expensive taste in books. There are very few ebooks that cost $25. eBooks typically cost well under $10, except for new releases when the paper book is only out in hardback. Wait for the paperback release and the ebook will fall correspondingly.

Originally Posted by Asawi

Only true for English language books.

There's also those of us poor suckers living in the Antipodes. I've seen new release ebooks over $30 quite regularly, and that's often still cheaper than the standard new hardback price of $45. Yes, really. And that is for novels. It's worse with non-fiction. And that's with the Australian dollar being currently worth more than the US dollar. There's a reason I came back from my holiday there with a suitcase full of books, literally.

An example:
An Australian author, Peter Fitzsimons, has a couple of books published in 2011. Batavia (March) is available in hardback at Dymocks for (presumably the publisher's RRP) $49.95. It's available from Dymocks as an ADE epub for $32.94. Mawson (November) is available in hardback also for $49.95 and not available at Dymocks in digital. Kobo offers Batavia at $21.59 and Mawson at $24.63, and possibly eligible for discount coupons. Both are published by Random House.

Even looking at books a few years after release Australians still typically pay more than $10 for ebooks. That includes genre fiction. A quick search on Kobo brings up the following:
Charlaine Harris (vampires) - Sookie Stackhouse novels for typically $11.99 - and not the most recent ones which are more expensive
Peter F Hamilton (SF) - mostly $12.99, although a couple of his more well-known are cheaper (!)
Maeve Binchy (women's fiction) - standard $12.72 with Kobo offering $9.59
Terry Pratchett (comic fantasy) - as for Maeve Binchy
Guy Gavriel Kay (high fantasy) - $10.99
Elizabeth Moon (space opera) - $11.99

And that is why I love my libraries!

[Giggleton]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You did make a mistake if you were expecting ebooks to be as cheap as 2nd-hand books; that's never going to be the case (except for public domain classics).

Never??? Anything can happen, the ever increasing number of uploads combined with an improved discovery system could force a lowering of prices, the race to the bottom as it were.

Also, a shortening of copyright length might occur, we expect things to be faster and such so in the future, when everybody only cares about the newest thing any book older than 6 months might be free.

[CRussel]

@Giggleton: Wait -- are those porcine aviators I see?

Originally Posted by catharine

Since having the e-reader I find that I am not using it as I can't find any decent books without paying full store price. (...) I have checked out various sites and can't seem to find any with decent, newish title and authors nor the non-fiction titles that interest me.

The answer is quite probably, unless you are willing to change your reading habits. The thing with ebooks is that publishers are using it as an opportunity to discard the notion of remainders and the second-hand market. Of course, I doubt that you will ever see an online retailer or publisher offering books at prices even comparable to those markets. The upside is that there are a lot of free and inexpensive books out there, if you're willing to read older books that have fallen into the public domain (many of which are excellent!), explore relatively unknown authors, or limit yourself to authors who have gone independent.

[Barty]

You could always read or reread the classics, all those books they made you read in school but didn't appreciate because education is wasted on the young.

You'd be amazed how many of them are actually good, even entertaining!