Quote:
Originally Posted by Lupin
I Europe (EU) e-book costs more than paper book. Reason for this is that paper books are regarded as a books and they are taxed at lower levels in most countries. E-books on the other had, have been considered as a service, and the tax level has been higher. In Finland a paper books tax is 10% and e-books is 24%. So I pay more for an e-book. The cost is not the only thing to consider, my reasons are like Deskimases ( https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...70&postcount=6), in addition my wife said some years a go "you must by no more books as we do not have the room for them". So I bought Bookeen Cybook Odyssey and rest is history. Now I'm on my third reader, Bookeen Cybook Muse HD. I seem to have knack for destroying these once in a while.
Now that there are Finnish e-books widely available from several bookstore (e.g. Adlibris, Elisa Kirja) it is easy to get new books. Elisa seem to be favoring watermarking e-books which I like as Adobe DRM causes endless trouble to Linux users.
I buy my English books usually from Kobo, occasionally from Safari (O'Reilly). Might sift to Elisa Kirja if they have a selection I like and after the EU new directive is in effect so that e-book costs the same or less than paper version. |
Note that in UK, ebooks are taxed at 20% VAT/TVA and pbooks at 0% nevertheless ebooks are usually lower in price unless the pbook is new and being discounted. Also Kobo seem to inflate many prices compared with Amazon.
The new EU rules only
allow the ebook VAT rate to be a reduced rate, they do not
require this.