Giving up on e-books.

[MV64]

I agree with her about the 505, I love mine and don't see a need to upgrade to the nook or the Kindle 3. For all the improvements they boast there are far too many restrictions and fine print to enjoy them as much as I could. The 505 is a fantastic reader, I love it.

As for book prices, there's always public domain. I think I've only bought one e-book in my few years of owning the 505, everything else has been public domain classics and history books.

[JeremyR]

Well, to be honest, an e-reader really shouldn't need to be upgraded every year or two. So many people seem to want mini iPads out of them.

But yeah, I think what is going to make or break e-books is how the publishers handle selling them. That's pretty awful right now, but as more people get the devices, I think the publishers will feel more pressure from piracy, and decide they need to open things up and offer reasonable pricing, just like what happened with mp3s.

[SensualPoet]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

the general bull-headedness of publishers in regard to understanding and pricing e-books, has completely disillusioned me in regard to purchasing any e-books, from any publisher or retailer. DRM is still an issue, formats are still not standardized... the list goes on.

My PRS-505 is gathering dust

Well, I don't get this at all. I have had an ereader for almost a year now and there is more choice today than a year ago. Ebooks remain -- consistently cheaper -- than paperbooks in the main: and I am talking about paperbooks of any sort.

I don't care a whit about DRM or multi-formats since almost everything is available in the two formats that matter: Kindle and ePub. DRM has not once gotten in the way of my enjoying a novel.

I simply do not understand this gripe. My Kindle and my Kobo are NOT gathering dust.

[simplyparticular]

While I am highly annoyed at the Agency 5 debacle, I'm actually reading more now as a result. I've read over 150 e-books this year, compared to only 60 in all of last year. In fact I'm avoiding reading a handful of p-Books on my TBR pile.

But I am fortunate enough to have access to two robust e-libraries, and the majority of my favorite authors and ongoing series have been e-books for quite some time.

[Kali Yuga]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

My enthusiasm is gone.

Hey, whatever floats your boat.

For me, my ereader has long been merely a functional object rather than a source of enthusiasm. YMMV.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

More importantly, the general bull-headedness of publishers in regard to understanding and pricing e-books, has completely disillusioned me in regard to purchasing any e-books, from any publisher or retailer.....

There is a ton of public domain books -- enough to last you a lifetime -- as well as tons put out by smaller publishers, and the aforementioned Overdrive. With a Sony, you should have lots of options.

[Jcas]

Well if your enjoying your trips to the library i guess you are still enjoying a good read and that is the most important thing.

I am new to ebook readers and have my first one so i have nothing to compare it to, but i love the portability of being able to take more than one book with me anywhere i choose to go.

Don't let your PRS-505 gather too must dust, it's been good to you so you owe it to at least protect it until the day you pick it up again and start enjoying it's benefits.

[Blue Tyson]

Originally Posted by CazMar

Much the same thing happened with music when MP3 players came out - everything was tied up in DRM and people complained of losing whole music libraries when they flushed their Ipod down the loo or some such disaster. Now public demand had forced a lot of music distributors to open up formats, make a better quality product and reduce the prices. It only takes one big distributor or publisher to really decide to open up the market and the others just follow. Just remember, there were people out there who objected to the introduction of the printing press because it would open up literature to the "masses"; how dare a "lower class" person receive an education! I think this spirit is alive and well and living in a lot of large publishing houses!

Yes, certainly with the 'books should cost more because *splutter* *blather* *choke*...because...because they should' people it is. Interested only in money, not people's access to literature, etc.

Not sure I have seen anyone ask them - why should some mediocre hack's book be valued at a higher price than a movie that cost several hundred million to make?

[bjones6416]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

As Easy Reader from the Electric Company (Morgan Freeman) once said it best "I have got to read." So much so there is no longer any room to move around in my basement. EReaders have managed to spare my home of never ending clutter, the books were threatening to take over my living room in addition to the basement, which they have already over run.

Karma to you for this post simply because that picture and quote made me happy. "I have got to read."

[GraceKrispy]

Originally Posted by MV64

I agree with her about the 505, I love mine and don't see a need to upgrade to the nook or the Kindle 3. For all the improvements they boast there are far too many restrictions and fine print to enjoy them as much as I could. The 505 is a fantastic reader, I love it.

I love my 505 as well! I haven't been tempted to buy any other reader. I just passed the two year mark for owning my 505, and I hope it lasts for a long time, or until the 505b is created, with just the tiniest of improvements.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

My enthusiasm is gone.

None of the new devices seems to offer any improvements over my Sony PRS-505, at least none that appeal to me.

More importantly, the general bull-headedness of publishers in regard to understanding and pricing e-books, has completely disillusioned me in regard to purchasing any e-books, from any publisher or retailer. DRM is still an issue, formats are still not standardized... the list goes on.

My PRS-505 is gathering dust, and I'm thoroughly enjoying my trips to Chicago's fantastic public libraries to check out my books.

I wish we had a better digital library selection (all the books I'd like to get seem to be on audio, but not epub), and I still tend to get most of my newer books and traditionally published books in paper form from the library. I still love physical books.

I use my reader quite a bit for independent works, actually. They are less expensive and I've found some fantastic stories that rival any of the better traditionally published ones out there.

I guess I don't see it as an all-or-nothing thing. I go back and forth. Right now, I'm reading a lot of indie work, and using my reader. Sometimes I read a lot of popular stuff, and I check it out from the library. Unlike a lot of readers on MR, I really don't hoard books. I go through books like mad, but it's not important to me to own the books. I'm not a collector of books. I'm a collector of stories.

[ColdSun]

You can take my ebook device from me only when you pry it from my cold dead hands!

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

None of the new devices seems to offer any improvements over my Sony PRS-505, at least none that appeal to me.

Why do they need to?

My car is a lot older than my 505 ... so is the chair I'm sitting in, the T-shirt I'm wearing, and the roof over my head. They haven't been improved because they've already got it right. If the 505 does what you want (and from the number of them out there, it appears that for a lot of us, it does) why is its improvement necessary? Contrary to what the people selling us things want us to believe, we don't need to buy new things all the time if our existing things do what we need to have done.

I'm happy with my 505, with the thousands of public domain books on it, with the Tim Myers ebooks I bought yesterday, and with the third Hammer's Slammers collection (completed my set! yay!) I just got from Baen. It does what I need, and shows every sign of continuing to do what it did when I bought it -- something which I needed, and thought was worth the price, back then, and haven't changed my mind since.

[aagstn]

The higher prices have killed my enthusiasm for buying ebooks. I used to buy them by the dozens, but now I buy maybe 1 every month or two. However, I have a huge library of ebooks I built up over the last decade to read plus what I can check out from the library so I have plenty of use for my eReading device without getting ripped off by greedy publishers.

[Jeri Patrick]

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

My enthusiasm is gone............

purchasing any e-books

Purchase? Yikes! I NEVER plan to buy an e-book. Our local library and the public domain will keep me happy for years to come.

[LDBoblo]

Heh, I lost a lot of interest while in possession of the 505, and the Kindle, or at least the new E-Ink Pearl screen has...er...kinda rekindled my interest a little...at least in making PDFs for books I'm genuinely interested in, and tolerating rubbish MOBI files for free disposable reading. The improvement in readability for me is significant, and makes the creation of visually pleasing files more worthwhile, whereas it felt like a lost cause on the old Sony.

Perhaps a few months down the line I'll get sick again of ripping apart ebook files and building PDFs out of them and return to paper books again for a while.

If you've got physical books conveniently available to you, I think it's reasonable to find ebooks lacking. Were I still living in the USA with the same library access I had before, I would have not bothered going digital at all.

[bevdeforges]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

If you've got physical books conveniently available to you, I think it's reasonable to find ebooks lacking. Were I still living in the USA with the same library access I had before, I would have not bothered going digital at all.

Ah, a kindred spirit. I doubt I would have been tempted to go digital except for living in France and cutting back on my regular visits to the US, where I would browse the bookstores and drop a tidy sum on reading material to tide me over to my next visit.

The libraries here proudly carry only French titles and don't even want donations of literary works in foreign languages like English. Bookshops are protected by legal price protection and only the largest book shops in Paris carry anything more than the "trade bestsellers" you can find in any international airport in the world.

Now that I have it, I couldn't live without my Reader, but I certainly understand those who aren't interested, given easy access to new books and a convenient way to weed out your growing collections by donating to libraries, hospitals or other organizations.

The publishers' current distribution and pricing policies are definitely a PITA, but so far, at least, fairly easily gotten around. I expect these policies will change, but living in France, I expect change to come slowly.