10-07-2012, 09:20 AM | #46 |
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I don't care if the OP comes back to this thread, we are doing fine without him. LOL
I switched to ebooks for several reasons. Free and low cost books being one of them. Another reason is because I have lived years and years outside the urban setting and the closest bookstore would be an hour or two drive away. I ordered a few physical books through Amazon, but I also hated having boxes upon boxes of books to move or sort through when we moved (often). Looking back at the bookstore experience for me, I realize I was never really comfortable looking to buy in a bookstore. I did it, yes, but I hated having people around me, possibly judging what I am buying. Not that I cared, but I just hated the feeling of others around me during what I consider to be a very personal experience. And the bookstores in the areas I have lived were not always the greatest, often having more videos, music and games than books. |
10-07-2012, 10:09 AM | #47 |
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A lot of printed books are simply copies of digital books. The OP is confused.
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10-07-2012, 11:10 AM | #48 | |
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I know the OP was trolling, but I'm falling for it anyway. The assumption that somehow one's mode of reading is a zero-sum game is, frankly, pretty ignorant. Which is OK, since being ignorant is apparently a right people have, but taking pride in being willfully ignorant? I'm relatively new to e-reading--only two years along--but I've been pleasantly surprised at the value it's added to my life: reading long-form online materials on a friendlier display via Instapaper, access to PD books, access to my library's eBook collection, ease of access to my personal collection, etc. It's a cliche to say so, but I'm reading more since buying my Kindle (and I read a heck of a lot before I bought it). And strangely enough, I've kept my lifelong love of physical books, and still haunt retail and used book stores, and my local thrift stores, for still more books. |
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10-07-2012, 11:21 AM | #49 |
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While the question is raised in a trollish way, I think the OP has a pretty legitimate point: Discoverability is still a huge issue with ebooks.
IMHO, online bookstore browsing tends to be vastly inferior for browsing than physical stores...the simple reason is that you can take in dozens of titles in a gaze at a physical bookstore while online bookstores typically can only show perhaps a dozen titles. Amazon, et al are wonderful if you know exactly what you want or if you want something very similar to what you've already stated a preference for. But the biggest joy of browsing (for me) is discovery, the serendipity of stumbling across something that elicits the "That looks cool, I had no idea this existed!" response. Online bookstores generally don't do that for me. Lagging load times, limited ability to see more than a handful of titles, limited utility of recommendation engines all make the process less fun than being in a physical store. Amazon is best-in-breed online, but still woefully inferior to in person browsing. Smashwords' search feature is really quirky and unreliable. Kobo, meh. B&N, blech. I find the boutique/collectives/small press sites like BookViewCafe, Baen, Angry Robot, etc to be cool because the crud is already pre-filtered away just by being limited to a niche site. I think a good part of online discovery will be played by sites like MobileRead, Kindleboards, Goodreads, book bloggers and blog posts, etc...I've found a lot of cool stuff online this way and things will continue to improve, but right now, physical bookstores are still the best place for me to find new and cool stuff. |
10-07-2012, 01:08 PM | #50 | |
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No matter how "clear" it may seem to many (and I'm not singling out BillSmithBooks here since he so obviously included an "IMHO" ) that physical in-store browing would/should naturally be most people's preference, it just doesn't hold up across the board. I for one, find online book (forget ebook) "discoverability" vastly easier, much more efficient and sooo much more pleasant than the in-store browsing experience ever was. Even long before I personally became involved with ebooks, I had given up the physical browsing experience in favor of online research and online ordering of physical books. I considered online bookstores a godsend. To those that see in-store browsing of books as inherently superior/better/more pleasant/whatever, I'm going to make the assumption that you were probably lucky enough to have a quality bookstore relatively close that had a vast assortment of books to choose from. And that you had a convenient way to get there. Some never had that. I was always an hour and fifteen minutes from a "quality" bookstore that in the end, probably wasn't going to have the stuff at the top of my wishlist anyway and would have to "order it in." And invariably, people were always waiting on me to get done "dragging my heels" in the bookstore so they could get somewhere else. So I always felt rushed and unprepared and almost always unsatisfied with what I was able find. So while everybody's book browsing/finding/selecting preferences are perfectly valid, it's quite apparent to me that a large number of people seem to be under the mistaken notion that all booklovers have these pleasant memories of perusing vast selections of books at their leisure and being able to immediately purchase all of their favorite kinds and walk out with treasures under their arms to take home and devour. It's just not quite the universal, shared, book-lover memory/experience you (rhetorical you) might be thinking it is. Last edited by DiapDealer; 10-07-2012 at 03:09 PM. Reason: Typo |
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10-07-2012, 05:38 PM | #51 | |
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In the store, I have to depend on the cover to catch my eye, then see what the blurb says. Yeah, I can flip through the book, but I usually don't do that very often. Then have to check out the front listing and try to figure out if it's in a series or not. If it is, then unless the earlier books are there, it's not coming home with me. (I hate reading a series out of order) On-line, I can still see the cover, still read the blurb, sometimes 'flip through' the inside. But I also have easy access to sites that'll tell me quickly if it's in a series, look to see if the earlier books are ebooks yet and check out their prices. I can also check out the reviews, (especially the bad ones) and look to see what other people bought. There's just a ton more information on an ebook accessable on-line than there is in person. Otherwise, I'd have to hope the sales person likes my genre and is knowledgeable, or maybe I strike up a conversation with a real-live person who's hanging around the same isle I am. Doesn't happen all that often. Otherwise, it's a lot of time wandering up and down the isle, waiting for something to call out to me. I walk away empty handed most of the time. Browsing on-line is just a lot faster, with a lot more information available as well as personal reviews, and the inventory a whole lot bigger than any book store. For me, it's a lot more fun. |
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10-07-2012, 05:44 PM | #52 |
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There are three things I've found where paper books are still superior to ebooks, aside from DRM and file format concerns:
1. unusual dimensions, such as coffee table books 2. illustrations 3. locating a particular passage when you don't remember the exact words One virtue of printed books is that they can be printed in whatever size and shape you desire. No matter how well designed an ebook is, it can't replicate the same experience. Illustrations and charts are rather hit-or-miss with ebooks. Some titles have illustrations are done well, with scalable or sufficiently high resolution pictures to let you see them clearly when zoomed in on a small screen. Some other titles may as well not include the pictures because they are so blurry on the screen even at normal size. Thirdly, have you ever remembered more or less where to find some information in a physical book (i.e. how far to turn the pages) but you can't come up with the right search terms? Current ebook technology can't help as much with such fuzzy situations. I think I read an article somewhere about the brain remembering physical locations better too than abstract book locations. Despite these shortcomings, ebooks satisfy most of my needs. Ebooks may not be for everyone but they suit me just fine. |
10-07-2012, 05:49 PM | #53 |
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10-07-2012, 06:51 PM | #54 |
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One of the things I like about the internet & ebooks is you can get Samples of ebooks. You cant get Sample of a PB or HB book! That tells me IF I am even interested in buying the complete book or not.
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10-07-2012, 06:56 PM | #55 | |
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The last straw for me to switch to ebooks was when the paperback versions of the Dresden Files went from normal MMPB size to an inch taller, a dollar more, with ugly fonts and practically no margins. Since my shelves are all set to MMPB size, perfectly, with no extra room, I was going to find another book shelf for that series, and they wouldn't match anyway. This series is still coming out in the large size. Definately not the size I wanted. And I'm not a fan of trade size. Too many times I've found the glue binding falls apart after a while. |
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10-07-2012, 07:06 PM | #56 |
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DuskyRose I Hated that also!
Also being Disabled [mention in earlier posts.] I found there were Libraries & Used book stores I couldnt even get into! Much less enjoy browsing what they had! STINKS! |
10-07-2012, 11:53 PM | #57 |
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I still hold out for cookbooks, craft books and magazines, but otherwise, I am totally into the ebook realm. Storage and portability. The fact that I also have eye damage necessitates a choice I would have made anyway.
The only disadvantage I've had so far is books that include maps, so that you can see where the action takes place. The maps on the Kindle are just too small to read. Happily, Calibre makes it possible for me to print out those maps, so that I can have them handy while reading. Oh, and another advantage. When my sister had a fire one year, she lost thousands of books to water and smoke damage. Offsite storage of your entire Calibre library is as easy as a 64Gig SD card or flash drive (ok...maybe several if you have audiobooks). Just a reminder - do have offsite storage in case of calamity or break-in. My sister lives 45 miles from the nearest book store. Not too convenient for her, but moreover, she has to go 100 miles to find a store that has more than 5 science fiction books. Online is just so much easier for her to discover books in sci fi and fantasy. We make an annual pilgrimage to Uncle Hugos (Mpls. bookstore that specializes in sci fi and fantasy), so she can still browse and buy. Last edited by Tarana; 10-08-2012 at 12:02 AM. |
10-08-2012, 12:30 AM | #58 | |
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10-08-2012, 09:47 AM | #59 |
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I will admit, on occasion, I have gone into book-stores for the sole purpose of finding something to download. Though generally Amazon's recommendations suffice.
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10-08-2012, 10:12 AM | #60 | |
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