My first exposure to ePub books was Project Gutenberg, and before I got a device, I had so much fun downloading them onto Calibre, choosing covers for Jane Eyre and Silas Marner, etc. Then, I got my first e-Reader (Kobo wifi), and started piling all my cute copies onto it, because they had FAR superior and prettier covers on them.
I thought this would be the same with how ALL bought books worked, until I discovered that some books (with a disease known as DRM) were not meant for me personally, to play with, no matter how much money I was supposed to bribe them with.
That was after having spent about $30 on various e-books of titles I knew I liked. I got frustrated with books that were not really made for ME to be the owner of, so I stopped buying them. I turned to Smashwords and amassed a boatload of free books and also bought a few. I have never spent as much as $10.
2 E-readers later (Daughter has the original Kobo and husband has the Kobo Touch) and a Sony-T1.
For me, a
large part of the e-book experience IS about the ability to make my books personally mine. I used to with paper books, scribble my name inside the cover, stick a "NO BOYS ALLOWED" sticker on the outside to entice my brothers to peek inside, I'd have FUN with books.
I suppose my first experience with the PG books kind of set my expectations way high for what the experience is supposed to be. So, I've decided to make it so by only getting books that can be really mine.
The T1 was so I could be a Linux user AND borrow e-books from the library. I will allow DRM material on my device for that purpose ONLY. I mean, I don't mind having a book that is not mine as long as it goes back to the library. I don't scribble on library books
Oh my I got off on a tangent. My ratio: Books over $10 - 0 vs freebies or cheap reads, over 1000